BMW Remote App - Restricted vehicle location to within 1.5km

[Mattt]

One of my minor niggles, mainly due to the way that BMW have worded it - is that 'for privacy reasons' they won't let you locate the vehicle if you're more than 1.5km away.

This is frustrating for a number of reasons, so I complained to BMW:

I said:

One thing that particularly annoys me is the refusal to provide the location of the car via the BMW Remote App if you’re more than a few miles away ‘due to privacy reasons’. I am the owner and driver of the car, I have no privacy concerns about me being able to access the location of my car – or in which area of the town or airport parking location I have parked it.

Please can you confirm why, with reference to any specific legislation, you disable this otherwise easily available functionality?

Additionally, please can you confirm that in the event of the vehicle being stolen, that BMW have procedures in place to enable full co-operate with the Police to locate the vehicle?

BMW said:

I acknowledge your dissatisfaction regarding the location service through the BMW Remote Apps for your vehicle. On behalf of BMW UK, I would like to apologise for any inconvenience that this is causing.

I can advise that the location service is in place to identify where a vehicle is within a 1500 metre radius and is not a tracking service. I can advise that due to the Privacy Law we are unable to disable this function. Should you wish to be able to track your vehicle, we would recommend that you have a tracking device fitted.

I note your comment regarding if the vehicle was stolen. I can advise that we would work closely with the police if we were contacted however, as previously advised the location service should not be relied upon as a tracker.

I said:

Please can you advise to what 'Privacy Law' you refer in the reasoning behind this restriction in functionality?

I would hope that this restriction is not placed on the vehicles so as to increase the revenue of Dealerships when selling aftermarket tracking devices, which would essentially offer the same functionality.

I await their response...

[Jon1967x]

It's called 'BMW sell a tracker and we want to make money from it'

My iPhone has a tracker in it ('findmyPhone') and there's no legal problem with that. Either way, they're not going to change their minds anytime soon

[Doink]

Don't understand why you would want to know where your car is, surely it would be where you last left it, don't you have anything else to worry about?

[eliot]

Most likely more to do with back-end IT systems. If they are storing personal sensitive data, they need to spend significantly more money keeping that data secure - so its cheaper to ignore the first 1.5Km and declare they are not holding sensitive data and save some money.
The google traffic maps does the same thing -there's no traffic data until the car(smarphone) has traveled about a mile.

[Jon1967x]

There's no sensitive data regarding a car position.

They do a tracker, why give the benefit away for free

[Mattt]

I know why they are doing it, but it's the privacy angle that annoys me.

[Osinjak]

It is irritating. I once got slightly lost in Istria (Croatia) and rang BMW Assist who located me straight away. Go figure. I read a story sometime ago about a stolen BMW, the police and BMW UK and how difficult they were about locating said vehicle, I think it got resolved in the end but they weren't massively helpful by all accounts. Bizarre really.

[modeller]

In a similar vein why do BMW disable coasting on their latest cars? Again they say it's due to legislation yet all VW's have it.

[Osinjak]

modeller said:

In a similar vein why do BMW disable coasting on their latest cars? Again they say it's due to legislation yet all VW's have it.

WTF is coasting?

[beacytan]

I have a 2015 X5 and find this annoying. I also think it's a complete lie on BMW's part, as I came from a 2014 Volvo XC60 which when used with their 'Volvo On Call' app, the car can be tracked no matter where you or the car are in the world. Are these privacy laws different for other companies??? The Volvo app was much better as it also showed a log of every trip the car had made, showing it on the map and giving distance/mpg etc. BMW have dropped the ball on this one. I work away and often leave the car parked at various airport parking/valet services. It's always nice to check where the car is, that it's locked and that it has not been in use.

[Harri Singh]

Hi

As far as i am aware, this is a UK restriction only. They can not guarantee that the registered keeper will be the sole user of the car. Therefore it may infringe the privacy of the user.