Ian Fogg watched his car being driven away on his video doorbell, had an Apple AirTag hidden inside it, and the manufacturer’s own app showed its live location. Yet months later he still cannot retrieve it. The car – a Kia – is sitting somewhere, its position known by the company, but UK law prevents that data from being used to track it in real time. “This car was incredibly easy to hack but incredibly difficult to track,” Fogg, a technology analyst at FDM CCS Insight, told BBC News. “It shouldn’t be this easy to nick a car when they cost an order of magnitude more than a phone and have similar radio technology.”
His experience has become a cautionary tale about the gap between what consumers expect from so-called connected car features and what they actually deliver. Car safety firm Thatcham Research warned there is a “genuine and growing gap” between expectation and technical reality.
“Ian Fogg’s stolen Kia remains unrecovered despite live location data, as UK law blocks real-time tracking.”
Fogg was abroad in March when his phone alerted him that he had lost access to the Kia Connect app. Thieves had broken into the vehicle without the keys and disconnected his phone via the entertainment system – an unsecured process designed to make it easier for new owners to take over. He watched the car drive off on his doorbell camera. For a short while an Apple AirTag hidden inside let him track it, but the thieves located it and discarded it because it was making a noise – a feature introduced by Apple to combat stalking.
Kia Connect’s website advises customers to contact the company in the event of theft. When Fogg did, he was told he would have to fill in a form every time he requested the location. He did this eight times. Each time, he did not receive the location until 24 to 48 hours after the car had been recorded there.
Kia told the BBC that UK law prevented the Connect function from being used to live track vehicles, advising customers to use it for “convenience” rather than security. “Kia Connect is a customer convenience feature, not a certified security vehicle tracker,” the firm said. “Release of location details of a vehicle via Kia Connect is possible, however this must be done in full compliance with all applicable laws, in particular GDPR, and the authorities to minimise risk to the customer.”
Fogg, who also has video doorbell evidence but no car, said the situation was absurd. “It shouldn’t be this easy to nick a car.” The technology exists to track it, but the law and the companies’ interpretation of it leave owners with little more than a grainy video of their car disappearing.