"Your Car Is Spying on You, and a CBP Contract Shows the Risks" 3 May 2021.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection purchased technology that vacuums up reams of personal information stored inside cars...illustrating the serious risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone...

CBP paid Swedish data extraction firm MSAB $456,073 for a bundle of hardware including five iVe “vehicle forensics kits” manufactured by Berla, an American company...“critical in CBP investigations as it can provide evidence [not only] regarding the vehicle’s use, but also information obtained through mobile devices paired with the infotainment system.”...

According to statements by Berla’s own founder, part of the draw of vacuuming data out of cars is that so many drivers are oblivious to the fact that their cars are generating so much data in the first place, often including extremely sensitive information inadvertently synced from smartphones...

MSAB marketing materials promise cops access to a vast array of sensitive personal information quietly stored in the infotainment consoles and various other computers used by modern vehicles — a tapestry of personal details akin to what CBP might get when cracking into one’s personal phone...MSAB even touts the ability to retrieve deleted data, divine “future plan[s],” and “Identify known associates and establish communication patterns between them.”...

iVe is compatible with over two dozen makes of vehicle and is rapidly expanding its acquisition and decoding capabilities...

Civil liberties watchdogs said the CBP contract raises concerns that these sorts of extraction tools will be used more broadly to circumvent constitutional protections against unreasonable searches...

MSAB spokesperson Carolen Ytander declined to comment on the privacy and civil liberties risks posed by iVe...

MSAB’s technology is doubly troubling in the hands of CBP, an agency with a powerful exception from the Fourth Amendment and a historical tendency toward aggressive surveillance and repressive tactics...

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