Some time spent with the Ultraviolette X-47 got me thinking about privacy and freedom in their most basic sense and how we might soon lose what little is left.
Think about your current life and how much you’ve already willingly or unknowingly sacrificed. Your smartphone and the multiple apps on it know your location at all times, and they keep an accurate log of where you have been unless you’ve specifically turned that feature off. Your payment apps create a digital footprint of what you spend on and where you do it. Your social media presence captures an even more accurate portrait of what you like and dislike and, more or less, who you are as a person. All of this is data you do not control and, instead, you live with the hope that it will be respected and protected – even though deep down, you know that it mostly isn’t.
There used to be a time, not so long ago, when a motorcycle was a tool of freedom. It was one of the few things that could take you as far as you wanted to go and let you keep that journey entirely to yourself if you so wished. One of the big downsides of EVs is that they do not yet offer that same unbridled freedom – a reliable public charging network that matches the existing fuel station network is still a distant dream.
However, the sweeping shift to connected vehicles is my real concern. All new EVs, and a growing number of ICE vehicles, are now eSIM-enabled and constantly harvesting incredible amounts of data. This includes not only location and speed, but also things like accelerator opening, brake pressure, lean angles and individual wheel speeds. Your every move, even if you accidentally lift the front or rear wheel, is logged. Of course, no manufacturer is actively using this data unless there’s a need to. For example, when I faced a glitch on the X-47 on my commute to work, I made sure to have it recorded on my action camera. But it turned out that there was no need to, because UV simply looked into their logs and easily pinpointed exactly what I was talking about.
The perks of all this data is invaluable in such situations. It’s also very helpful in terms of giving customers superb convenience in terms of service and vehicle status alerts. However, it comes with a steep price, because there’s potential for it to be misused or exploited. Can you imagine how much government and insurance agencies would love to have access to this data? And given the nature of today’s world, it won’t be a surprise to see that happen in the future.
The ideal scenario is that a legal mandate is put in place that enables the collection of vehicle data, but nothing that threatens user privacy, especially not location. Unfortunately, we live in an era where individual rights and privacy pale before corporate convenience, so I’m not holding my breath in that regard.
Instead, the more realistic hope is that companies start to offer a privacy/incognito mode that allows customers to permanently deactivate this feature if they wish to. Commendably, Ather, TVS and Royal Enfield already follow this practice, and I’d love to see more manufacturers follow suit.
Avik Chattopadhyay
Shapur Kotwal
