A student was found guilty of driving a cyclist with a car-sharing car. The evidence provided BMW – although the manufacturer claims to collect no such data.
Car sharing car from BMW DriveNow
Thursday, 21.07.2016
15:31 clock
BMW has to put up with questions about the data security of its customers. The background is the provision of precise data on the journey of a man with a car from BMWs car sharingOffer Drive to the District Court of Cologne, as reported by the manager magazin in its new edition.
The court asked for the information in the case against the business student Arman J., who had been sentenced at the end of May for 33 months imprisonment for negligent homicide. J. had hit a cyclist in July 2015 with a Drive-Now BMW.
According to the magazine’s report, the court was able to use the data from BMW to precisely reconstruct the distance traveled and the speeds it traveled. In addition, other information such as the outside temperature or the position of the mobile phone used for booking were included in the data.
BMW denies to store exact routes
A first request of the prosecutor should BMW According to the court initially did not answer, the transmission was therefore more than eight months after the fact. A spokesman for the court confirmed on request from manager magazin that the information came from the “database of BMW”. The vehicle had been detained by the police immediately after the accident.
However, it remains unclear why the car manufacturer has such detailed customer data. Drive Now – a joint venture between BMW and Sixt – denied on request to save exact distances or speeds. Only place and time of the rental beginning and end would be charged to the billing.
“Without the express consent of the customer inadmissible”
BMW referred in general to several “data storage” in the vehicle, from which, however, could not create motion profiles. In addition, one did not want to comment on individual cases for data protection reasons.
Storing data to create a motion profile would probably be illegal in Germany. “Movement profiles are not allowed without the explicit consent of the customer,” said Peter Schaar, former Federal Data Protection Commissioner, manager magazin.