"Used cars, new threats"

I used to have a car, leased one. And because it was a modern car from a prestigious manufacturer, it had an app for the mobile phone where you can do stuff like: see the location of your car, lock or unlock the car remotely, watch service intervals, battery status and many more.

The only thing you had to do to link the app in your mobile phone with your car was to visit the official manufacturer car service and show a code generated in your mobile phone. Once they finish this registration procedure you could see and do nice stuff from your mobile phone.

After 2 years my leasing ended. I returned the car and choose not to have a new one in a city where public transport is well developed and faster than traveling with a car. But I was still able to watch the location of my previous car in the mobile phone app. From time to time I received a notification that battery is low and I should better charge it. Too bad. I could contact the used car seller where the car was, because I knew the location, but I was too lazy to do that.

After a year I can still watch a location of “my” car. I know it has a new owner somewhere in a neighboring country. I can still unlock and lock it remotely. And I can do much more stuff, which I don’t consider risky enough to talk about them. Now, imagine that I will travel to the new owner location and easily find the car. Wait once the new owner is not around, unlock the car, do or take things I am interested in, lock the car and leave. First of all, the insurance company won’t pay anything to the new owner because there was no sign of damage on the car. Police has also limited possibilities. Maybe they find mi fingerprints somewhere on the car, but I was the previous owner so no surprise there. No sign of damage, nothing that can help to determine the root cause in a standard way. Actually, only the car manufacturer can help them if. If someone has an idea to ask the manufacturer. If the manufacturer has the logs or trace of actions and if their log retention policy is long enough.

But that is only for a satiation where I take something from a car. But there are much more perspectives. Imagine I am waiting for a moment when the new owner leaves his house, apartment. Again, this ideal use case for having information about the car location. And you came come up with much more situations where having that much control of someone’s car could be dangerous.

I will completely skip the possibilities of national agencies and their ability to spy on you. They have this possibility anyway. But now, you can have similar possibilities. If you sell your smart car to someone who is a target of your interest, you have pretty nice options how to monitor his activities and have access to his car.

I was curious if the manufacturer updates his phone app or issue a new terms and conditions that will force me to verify the registration personally at the service center or prove that I am still owner of the car. Nothing in last 3 years when I have the phone app. No change in last year when I do not owe the car.

Well maybe it is a car manufacturer specific. Could be, but I was able to check other 2 car manufacturer. They both are producing “smart cars” with a possibility to have a phone app to track your car location and unlock/lock the car remotely. But the situation is the same as with my car, once you link the app with your car, no process of re-validation or checking whether the owner has changed. I should highlight that there is no official statement from the car manufacturer itself, but I was checking the reality with car owners who has cars and phone apps more than 1 year.

What is the conclusion? Do not buy second hand smart cars. And if you do, count with the risk or force the manufacturer to check whether your car is linked with someone’s phone app. And could it be that car manufacturer service guy can spy on you or unlock your car without much effort? Well, that is a topic for a deeper investigation and some other article.

Do you have similar experience? Please share it with me.