There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
I see. A cop can call up VW and get your car’s location whenever they want, even if you’ve cancelled any sort of tracking service.
If the owner of the car is consenting to have it tracked, I don’t see the problem here. Why do you make it sound like the police overreached?
I seriously doubt vw cares if the owner consents.
In this case, they absolutely did, and it didn’t matter . I would bet that the reverse is true and that if they absolutely don’t consent, it still doesn’t matter.
I guess I’d like to believe car telemetry is governed like any other resource police have access to. Investigators can ask email services for logs, phone providers for location data, banks for transaction records, but would all require a warrant.
Owner consent changes the discussion significantly, especially with something this time sensitive. If my kid is kidnapped I absolutely want them to get access as quickly as possible, not waste time waiting on a judge. That should include cooperation and reactivating an expired subscription as part of supporting the investigation.