Tesla API - Drive & vehicle data in the wild?

[akmedia]

Hello everyone, I recently purchased model 3 and going through a learning curve. As a developer one of my eye catching feature is the Tesla API. Although Tesla does not support this,It is amazing to download ton of data and then later look at them.There are several services such as teslafi.com or teslalog.com are doing a great job at this. Also I saw several "free" Apps and Alexa skills to control vehicle functions.

All these services needs Tesla App login to fetch the data. There are no controls on the Tesla side to limit the type of data. The data received through APIs are very exhaustive and make it nightmare on privacy.
With API data anyone can tell where I live, work, go shopping, eat out, and go on vacation. Anyone who has access to this data can learn great deal about me.All these services secure and protect customer's data. But what if there is a data breach or some big company buy them out? What happens to the data then?

I'm torn between one side wanting the data and other side fearing of privacy. Will Tesla make this official at some point in the future?

Want to know how others feel about this?

 

[HankLloydRight]

Question: how would Tesla making it official change any of the privacy risks?


Also most of the services you mention can work with the API token without providing the Tesla login credentials, although that doesn’t change the data privacy concerns, it’s easy to expire your token to stop the data collection at any time.

Finally, Google, Apple, and Facebook most likely already know where you live, work, go shopping, eat out, and go on vacation. And even they’ve been hacked. So is any private data safe anymore?

 

[Fellsteruk]

These service are great but it’s more about giving someone else the keys to my car. Whilst I don’t suggest any of these companies are dodogy in any way there is always a risk.

My desire for the data doesn’t outweigh my concerns about sharing my details so I personally don’t use it.

 

[akmedia]

These service are great but it’s more about giving someone else the keys to my car. Whilst I don’t suggest any of these companies are dodogy in any way there is always a risk.

My desire for the data doesn’t outweigh my concerns about sharing my details so I personally don’t use it.

Thanks for your quick response. glad you picked privacy over data sharing.

 

[akmedia]

Question: how would Tesla making it official change any of the privacy risks?


Also most of the services you mention can work with the API token without providing the Tesla login credentials, although that doesn’t change the data privacy concerns, it’s easy to expire your token to stop the data collection at any time.

Finally, Google, Apple, and Facebook most likely already know where you live, work, go shopping, eat out, and go on vacation. And even they’ve been hacked. So is any private data safe anymore?

Thanks for your quick response.

Question: how would Tesla making it official change any of the privacy risks? - Tesla can create something similar to apple privacy where they control who gets access to what data and how long. e.g. In the Tesla App I can go settings/privacy and look at all Apps that are getting my data. I can turn on/off anytime. Also data can be segregated and anonymized. I can just share my charging data with an App who are just aggregating and providing feedback on my charging patterns. they don't get any other vehicle data or drive data. This can also be a cash cow for Tesla if they charge companies accessing the data.

Google/Apple/Facebook already has my data - Yes and No. they do not have data at this level of detail on offline data.