The unrelenting abuse by her husband continued for months even after the San Francisco mother succeeded in getting a restraining order against him. In 2020, she told police that he had started using remote technology that was connected to the car apps of their 2016 Tesla Model X family car to terrorize her.
She alleged that she would often return to her vehicle, only to find the doors open or locked, or the heat turned on, or the horn honking, or the vehicle’s ability to charge turned off.
“He had the resources to run an all-round torture campaign against me,” the woman told this reporter in a telephone interview.
Cases of the kind of technology-enabled stalking and other forms of harassment Kailey (she did not want her real name used because of ongoing litigation) experienced are on the rise as automakers are adding more and more sophisticated features into their vehicles and turning cars that were once considered sanctuaries by their owners into “computers on wheels,” said Robert Harrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. Some call them smart phones with wheels.
But that could soon change, and vehicles could once again become safe havens for their owners if California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the Access to Connected Vehicle Service bill authored by Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine. The bill sailed through the legislature last month. Newsom has until the end of this month to sign it.
SB 1394 was jointly co-authored by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, D-La Mesa and Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento. It would establish a legal process for the rapid termination of a domestic abuser’s access to app-connected remote and GPS-based vehicle technology.
“Abuse of these apps can be very threatening and traumatizing to survivors,” Min said in a telephone interview earlier this week. If enacted, California would be the first state in the nation to have such a bill.
A ‘lifeline’ for DV survivors
Multiple women’s rights advocates who supported the bill say a car is a lifeline to survivors. Having safety and privacy that a car can provide is “crucial to my clients,” said Prof. Jane Stoever, director of the UC Irvine Law Domestic Violence Clinic, and a co-sponsor of Min’s bill.
Smart phone apps allow owners to check a car’s location if they forget where they parked it or to lock or unlock it remotely. The car owner can grant access to a limited number of other drivers.
Drafted with input from a number of survivors, women’s rights advocates and some car manufacturers themselves, Min said he hoped SB 1394 would address domestic violence abusers exploiting in-car location tracking to harass and intimidate survivors.
“In this rapidly growing digital age, bills like SB 1394 are a step in the right direction,” noted Shobha Hiatt, a co-founder of Narika, a Bay Area-based support group for South Asian survivors of domestic violence. “More states should follow suit.”
A woman in Southern California discovered an Apple AirTag plugged under her dash by her abusive husband that allowed him to track her movements in real time. When she asked him about it, he dismissively said, “Oh, you found it. I’ve been looking for it.” The couple is now in the midst of custody arrangements for their three young sons.
Kailey sued her husband in State Superior Court in 2020, claiming sexual battery and assault. She included Tesla as a defendant, accusing the carmaker of negligence for continuing to provide the husband access to the car even though she had a restraining order against him.
She began her requests to Tesla to end access in 2018, a year after the police began investigating her complaints. The carmaker told her that as long as her husband’s name remained on the vehicle’s title as co-owner, they couldn’t deny him access.
Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow sided with Tesla that the woman had no proof “other than her belief and imagination” that her husband had used the car’s technology to stalk and harass her, according to court transcripts. Both husband and wife had “a right” to use the car technology, he wrote. At their request, both Kailey and her husband have been identified only by their initials in court documents.
In the early part of the police investigation, Tesla had told police that the remote access logs they were asking for were only available within seven days of the events recorded, according to the lawsuit.
Kailey lost the case and has relocated out of California, she said. The couple decided to sell their car. Their divorce and custody issues are pending.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
AAI concerned about potential for harm
Other automakers offer similar tracking and remote access features, although some of them have taken steps to prevent the misuse of data their vehicles track.
In a May 23 letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), a technology-focused trade group for automakers and suppliers that represents 98% of car and light trucks sold in the United States, stressed that it was concerned about the potential for abuse of connected vehicle services to stalk or harass domestic violence survivors. Disclosing location-tracking data to an abuser could “create a potential for significant harm,” the AAI wrote.
Min’s bill would address many of those concerns. It would require carmakers to disable an abuser’s access to connected vehicle services within two business days of receiving a request from a survivor. Documentation, such as proof of legal possession of the vehicle, or a domestic violence restraining order that awards vehicular possession would be enough to sever digital access with their abuser even if they hold a joint title, according to a press release from Min’s office.
Kailey said she was happy that the bill had made it to the governor’s desk because survivors like herself should not have to go through what she did.
“The reason I bought that car was because I thought it was safe,” she said.
Viji Sundaram is a freelance reporter based in the Bay Area.
