Cars Tracking Wives
After a marriage that nearly lasted 10 years, real estate broker Christine Dodal decided she wanted to separate. In September 2022, she fled her home, driving her Mercedes Benz C300 to her daughter's house. Her husband, an employee at the Drug Enforcement Administration, was not pleased with her departure.

Dodal, 59, noticed a new and strange message on the car's internal screen, regarding a location service named "mbrace." On one occasion, she took a picture of the message and searched for the service online. She said, "I realized he was tracking me."

Dodal learned that "mbrace" was part of "Mercedes Me," a suite of electronic services accessible to the customer through a mobile app. The victim had only used the "Mercedes Me" app to make car loan payments and was unaware that the app could also be used to track the vehicle's location. One night, while she was visiting a friend at his house, her husband sent an emoji of a thumbs-up to the friend, and a nearby surveillance camera spotted his car driving in the area, according to the investigator working on the case.

Dodal contacted Mercedes customer service in an attempt to cancel her husband's digital access to her car, but the loan and ownership were in his name; despite her making the car payments and holding a court order keeping her husband away from her, and another allowing her alone to use the car during the divorce proceedings, company representatives told her that her husband was their client and that he could retain his digital access to the vehicle’s location. Of course, there was no button that allowed her to disconnect the app's connection to the car.

One of Dodal's legal representatives affirms, "This isn't the first time he's heard of something like this." Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Mercedes stated that the company does not comment on "the personal matters of clients."

A Breached Electronic Fortress
A car is supposed to be a fortress for its driver, where one can freely sing, cry, entertain oneself, and drive to a place unknown to anyone else.

However, modern cars today are described as "smartphones with wheels" because they are connected to the internet and employ countless means to gather data, from cameras to seat weight sensors, and recordings that evaluate the intensity of braking and turning.

Gene Kaltreider, privacy researcher at "Mozilla," who reviewed the privacy policies of more than 25 car manufacturers, points out that "most drivers do not realize how much information their cars collect." Notably, Kaltreider encountered surprising admissions, including Nissan's acknowledgment that they may collect information about "sexual activity."

He said, "People think their car is private. On a computer, the user knows where the camera is and can cover it with tape. But when you buy a car and later discover that it is harmful to your privacy, what do you do?"

Privacy advocates worry about how car companies use and share user data, such as with insurance companies, and drivers' inability to stop all data collection.

For users, this data frenzy comes in the form of an app that enables them to check the location of the car when they forget where they parked it, for example, to lock and unlock it remotely, to start it and shut it down, and some apps even allow for starting the car's climate controls, sounding the horn, or turning on the lights. After setting up the app, the owner can grant access to a limited number of other drivers.

Obsessed Partners
In the past, emotionally obsessive and controlling partners would track their significant others using GPS technology and Apple's "AirTag" trackers.

In 2020, a lawsuit filed by a woman in the San Francisco Superior Court alleged that her husband used his access to their shared Tesla Model X to harass her after their separation.

In her complaint against her husband and Tesla, the woman disclosed that the car's horn and lights were activated remotely in a parking space. On hot days, she would find that the heating system was remotely turned on to annoy her when she got into the car, and the same happened with the cooling system on frosty days. The husband admitted to the court that he used Tesla's location feature to discover her new address, which she hoped would remain a secret.

- New York Times Service.