Striking Anthem of Our Time

Australian medical doctor and independent artist Iyah May has released a new track titled "Karmageddon," which sheds light on the harsh realities of Twitter wars, political division, media manipulation, out-of-control inflation, Covid bioweapon,

Dr. Fauci, and corporate greed. The song reflects the turmoil the world has endured over the past five years and might as well serve as a striking anthem of our time.

On X, May said because of her controversial lyrics, "As some of you might know I am now an independent artist after I lost my manager because I didn't change the lyrics of this song, and also left my label."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y29kmnhjtc8

While ‘Karmageddon’ has sparked significant conversation and controversy, Iyah has stood her ground. She refused to compromise her vision when asked to change a key lyric line, leading to the end of her contract with her manager. She chose to walk away from her record label and now, fully independent, Iyah continues to carve her own path as an artist.

Her fearless approach is shaped by her unique perspective as a qualified medical doctor, having worked on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

LYRICS:
I open up my phone on a Monday morning
Staring at my screen
I'm tired and a little lonely
Mr Musk he said some shit the lefts are angry
Twitter wars and Gaza man it's overwhelming
Maybe that's how life becomes when
People less important than a profit line
No one cares about your dreams just pay
Your tax on time
Keep scrolling
Hold me near to you now
Gender, guns, religion and abortion rights
You better pick a tribe and hate the other side
Keep scrolling
But did you see Taylor live?

Man made virus watch the millions die
Biggest profit of their lives
Here's inflation that's your prize
This is Karmageddon
Turn on the news and eat their lies
Kim or Kanye pick a side
Cancel culture what a vibe
This is Karmageddon
Corporations swear they never lie
Politicians bribed for life
More than war it's genocide
This is Karmageddon
Welcome to the chaos of the times
If you go left and I go right
Pray we make it out alive
This is Karmageddon

It's fashion week celebs lose ribs
Balenciaga how's the kids
Just ask Drake he's losing beef
Kendrick killed him in his sleep
Diss tracks about beating up your queen
While women dying doesn't cause a scene
While we're fed all these distractions
Kids are killed from Israel's actions
I'mma speak my mind
Sick to death of all these crazy lies
A circus for humanity's decline
We just want a peaceful life give the people back their rights
And I've still got a beef
Cause Fauci's laughing and we've been asleep
And WHO's a liar and it's running deep
Big pharma finna eat they a devil make them weak

Man made virus watch the millions die
Biggest profit of their lives
Here's inflation that's your prize
This is Karmageddon
Turn on the news and eat their lies
Kim or Kanye pick a side
Cancel culture what a vibe
This is Karmageddon
Corporations swear they never lie
Politicians bribed for life
More than war it's genocide
This is Karmageddon
Welcome to the chaos of the times
If you go left and I go right
Pray we make it out alive
This is Karmageddon

Written by: Iyah May & Danny Duke
Performed by: Iyah May
Produced by: Danny Duke
Mixed by: Danny Duke
Mastered by: Chunkyluv
Video By: Brad Murnane
Edited By: Brad Murnane & Iyah May

CIA can read WhatsApp messages

CIA can read WhatsApp messages – Zuckerberg
Encryption prevents Meta from accessing chats, but it is powerless when someone logs directly into a user’s phone, the company’s CEO has said
11 Jan, 2025

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that US authorities, including the CIA, can access WhatsApp messages by remotely logging into users’ devices, effectively bypassing the platform’s end-to-end encryption.

Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Friday, Zuckerberg explained that while WhatsApp’s encryption prevents Meta from viewing message content, it does not protect against physical access to a user’s phone.

His comments came in the context of a question by Rogan about Tucker Carlson’s quest to set up an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In February last year, while speaking about finally succeeding in talking to Putin after three years of failed attempts, Carlson blamed the US authorities, namely the NSA and the CIA, for stalling his efforts. According to Carlson, the agencies spied on him by tapping his messages and emails, and leaked his intentions to the media, which “spooked” Moscow from talking to him. Rogan asked Zuckerberg to explain how this could have happened given encryption safeguards that are supposed to protect messages.

“The thing that encryption does that’s really good is it makes it so that the company that’s running the service doesn’t see it. So if you’re using WhatsApp, there’s no point at which the Meta servers see the contents of that message,” Zuckerberg said, noting that even if someone were to hack into Meta’s databases, they could not access users’ private texts. The Signal messaging app, which Carlson used, uses the same encryption, according to Zuckerberg, so the same rules apply. However, he noted that encryption does not stop law enforcement from viewing messages stored on devices.

What they do is have access to your phone. So it doesn’t matter if anything’s encrypted, they could just see it in plain sight,” he clarified. Zuckerberg mentioned tools such as Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, which can be covertly installed on mobile phones to access data.

According to Zuckerberg, the fact that users’ private messages can be jeopardized by directly breaking into their devices is the reason Meta came up with disappearing messages, where one can have one’s message thread erased after a certain period of time.

“If someone has compromised your phone and they can see everything that’s going on there, then obviously they can see stuff as it comes in… So having it be encrypted and disappearing, I think is a pretty good kind of standard of security and privacy,” he stated.

Zuckerberg’s remarks come amid ongoing debates about digital privacy and government surveillance. While end-to-end encryption is lauded for protecting user data, agencies like the CIA and FBI have argued it can impede efforts to combat crime and terrorism. A 2021 FBI training document indicated that US law enforcement can gain limited access to encrypted messages from services like iMessage, Line, and WhatsApp, but not from platforms such as Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, or Wickr. Additionally, while encrypted messages cannot be intercepted during transmission, reports indicate that backups stored in cloud services may be accessible to law enforcement if an encryption key is attached.

Side Effects of COVID Vaccines Linked to 201 Types of Diseases

It’s a “Killer” Vaccine Worldwide: Japanese Researchers Say Side Effects of COVID Vaccines Linked to 201 Types of Diseases
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Lee Harding
Global Research, Dec 20, 2024
Western Standard and Global Research 15 January 2024

“You Were Right, Vaccines Are Killing Millions of Our Loved Ones”,  Kazuhiro Haraguchi, Former Minister of Internal Affairs 

“You will find diseases of the heart, kidney, thyroid, diabetes, liver, skin, eyes, blood, nerves, systemic diseases, brain, lungs”.  Professor Masayasu Inoue, Osaka City University School of Medicine

“The mRNA vaccine disperses throughout the body and is not contained in the shoulder like most vaccines.

“It doesn’t know where to go. If it goes into the bloodstream, it goes to the brain, liver and kidneys,” Professor Masanori Fukushima, Kyoto University

Introduction

Global Research has recently published several articles on the Covid vaccine in Japan, confirming its lethality. This report by the Western Standard below pertains to the Press Conference of Medical doctors and scientists held in January 2024.

The evidence is overwhelming. It potentially affects 96 million vaccinated people in Japan. I should mention that the vaccines distributed in Japan are identical to those marketed Worldwide, namely Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna Spikevax Bivalent, AstraZeneca, etc.

The question yet to be confirmed is whether there are differences in the composition of the vaccine distributed in different countries and regions of the World.

There are numerous studies published in the course of the last three years which confirm the nature of the Vaccine. The results of the Japanese studies confirm unequivocally that the Covid “Vaccine” is a dangerous substance which should immediately be withdrawn Worldwide.

The Confidential Pfizer Report

The impact on mortality and morbidity of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine has been confirmed by a Pfizer Confidential Report — released and made public under Freedom of Information in October 2021. The Confidential Pfizer Report –barely acknowledged by the media– was known to national governments and health authorities Worldwide. It confirms that the so-called Covid Vaccine is a killer.

The negotiation between Pfizer and the President of the EC Mrs. Ursula von Der Leyen was initiated in October 2022, for 4.5 billion doses of Pfizer BioNtech, (namely 10 doses per person). A contract for one billion doses was subsequently reached for a population of 450 million people who in large part had already been vaccinated.

What was carefully overlooked was the Pfizer report which confirms the impacts (mortality and morbidity) of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine to be distributed to the EU’s 450 million people.

“The Confidential report is a bombshell. The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. By the end of February 2021, “Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events”

COVID “Vaccine” Triggers Excess Mortality Worldwide

Below is a summary of several studies on excess mortality pertaining to the vaccine including Japan.

England and Wales

“The table below pertains to excess deaths related to malignant neoplasm (cancerous tumor) in England and Wales, recorded in three consecutive years: 2020, 2021, and 2022 vs. a 10 year trend (2010-2019).

The data for excess mortality in 2020 (the year prior to the vaccine) are negative with the exception of “malignant neoplasm without specification of site”.

The COVID-19 vaccine was rolled-out in several phases in England and Wales starting on December 8, 2020  and extending into March-April 2021.

The upward movement in excess mortality (%) commences in 2021. The increase in excess mortality related to malignant neoplasm is tabulated for the two first years of the vaccine.

Germany

Below is a similar table pertaining to Excess Mortality in Germany, which points to the Deviation of Observed Mortality from Expected Mortality (by age group) in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Notice the upward shift in excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 following the rollout of the Covid Vaccine in December 2020

Germany: Excess Mortality by Age Group (%)

Japan

Excess Mortality in Red by age group, Total Excess Mortality in Gray Japan. Excess Mortality (2020-2022): Jump in Excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 (January-October 2022)

United States

The graph below: “All Deaths reported to Vaers by Year” starting in 1990. (U.S.)

What can be observed is that the number of deaths has increased dramatically in the course of 2021 corresponding to first year of the Covid vaccine which was launched in the U.S. in mid December 2020.

Today our thoughts are with people of Japan,  with the children of Japan.

In the words of the Former Minister of Internal Affairs Kazuhiro Haraguchi’s courageous statement:

“‘You Were Right, Vaccines Are Killing Millions of Our Loved Ones”

“They are trying to block our freedom, our resistance, our power. But we will never lose.”

Of significance, the fraudulent narrative concerning the Covid “Vaccine” is collapsing in different parts of the World, with Japan in the lead.

We call for the immediate cancellation and Worldwide withdrawal of the Covid “Vaccine”

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 31, 2024.
Japanese Researchers Say Side Effects of COVID Vaccines
Linked to 201 Types of Diseases
Lee Harding
15 Jan 2024

Japanese researchers say their “shocking” systematic review of research papers on COVID-19 vaccines has discovered thousands of side effects “affecting every possible aspect of human pathology.”

The findings were laid out in a 93-minute press conference in Japan held January 11 by the Vaccine Issues Study Group, a panel of esteemed medical experts. The findings followed six months of investigations into the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

Professor Emeritus Masanori Fukushima of Kyoto University, long a fierce critic of the vaccines, said the breadth of the harms is “unprecedented” for medical treatments.

“A systematic review of the literature has unveiled some shocking information. Thousands of papers have reported side effects after vaccination, affecting every possible aspect of human pathology, from ophthalmology to psychiatry,” he said.

“For example, the age-adjusted mortality rate for leukemia has increased. And there are significant findings for breast cancer, ovarian cancer and so on.”

VIDEO OF PRESS CONFERENCE TAKEN DOWN

    Japan  Wowsers Vax Side Effects Press Conference ?? “201 diseases have been identified with 3,071 papers written on side effects. It’s unprecedented in human history” “Diseases of the heart, kidney, thyroid, diabetes, liver, skin, eyes, blood, nerves, brain and lungs have… pic.twitter.com/lQlppmb6Tz   — (@Risemelbourne) January 14, 2024

Fukushima said there were so many brain-related adverse events, its researchers probably hadn’t found all of them yet. “Mental disorders, psychiatric symptoms, depression, mania, anxiety, came up in abundance, but it’s endless,” he said.

Fukushima, who has 208 scholarly papers to his name on ResearchGate, said doctors who want to sound the alarm find their message is suppressed. Last February, he launched a lawsuit against the government for allegedly hiding vaccine harms.

“Japanese doctors are trying hard, but they face various obstructions,” Fukushima said.

Professor Yasufumi Murakami from Tokyo University of Science said the responsible course of action would be to halt the administration of such vaccines.

“It’s very clear what happens when you administer a toxic gene to a human. There are cases that occur within one or two weeks after injection, but there are also many cases that appear after one or two years,” he said before laying out long-term risks.

“Vaccines that have failed are still being administered and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare recognizes these failed vaccines. So I would like them to stop immediately. And even though I speak out in various places, they don’t stop at all. So we will clearly present evidence and publish it as articles, one by one.”

Murakami warned that “with the current messenger-type vaccines, a significant amount of IgG4 is being induced.”

He said this was in excess of a normal vaccine response and could interfere with immune functions.

The researchers found 201 types of diseases had been found among 3,071 papers on side effects. Professor Masayasu Inoue, Emeritus Professor at Osaka City University School of Medicine, said some harms are hitting entire families and are well-documented.

“It is unprecedented in human history for a single vaccine to have this much literature out on it,” said Masayasu.

“You will find diseases of the heart, kidney, thyroid, diabetes, liver, skin, eyes, blood, nerves, systemic diseases, brain, lungs.”

Fukushima said the mRNA vaccine disperses throughout the body and is not contained in the shoulder like most vaccines.

“It doesn’t know where to go. If it goes into the bloodstream, it goes to the brain, liver and kidneys,” he explained.

Fukushima said authorities preaching the safe and effective message ignored a wide body of evidence and should go back to school.

“With fragments of such knowledge, they exaggerate things and think they can go with this,” Fukushima said.

“So, honestly, they need to go back and redo from middle school biology to high school and university entrance exams.

As I mentioned earlier, medicine is still immature.”

Australian Broadcasting CEO chastised Joe Rogan

Australian Broadcasting Boss Attacks Joe Rogan As 'Malevolent Figure Preying On The Public'
by Tyler Durden
Dec 02, 2024

The far flung nation of Australia and its close neighbor New Zealand were widely considered two of the worst examples of authoritarian western response to the covid pandemic.  The Australian public was locked down and under house arrest in the larger cities.  In some cases only one person would be allowed to leave home at a time and could only travel a short distance to shop for necessities.  People who went to public parks or beaches were fined or arrested.  Covid camps were created to detain not only people who had traveled overseas, but also people who simply tested positive.

Most disturbing of all, Australian officials had people arrested who dared to criticize the lockdowns on social media. Australian news organizations widely defended such measures in lockstep with the government narrative.  With the exception of a few minor complaints, journalists from the land down under acted as propagandists for the government and for Big Pharma.

It was these Orwellian conditions and similar attempts across the west that led to many personalities in the alternative media to speak out and become decidedly anti-establishment.  One of those figures was podcaster Joe Rogan.  

Rogan attracted the full fury of the corporate media for engaging in interviews with lockdown critics who debunked many of the narratives put forward by government authorities.  As it turns out, in the majority of cases Rogan and his guests were right.  The fearmongering over covid was overblown.  The lockdowns were ineffective.  Social distancing was ineffective.  The masks were ineffective.  The vaccines were suspiciously experimental and proven less effective than natural immunity.  Death numbers were inflated by comorbidities.  

The virus itself only has an average Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of 0.23%, meaning 99.8% of all people regardless of vaccination status were under no threat (the original false claims from the WHO and others was that the virus was deadly for 3% of people).     

The lockdowns were pointless in terms of public health, but very useful in terms of public control.

To this day, many in the media still despise Joe Rogan and the alternative media for revealing the inconsistencies within the covid theater.  Not to mention, they hate the fact that their elitist ivory tower is being torn down by civilian journalists.  This was the motivation behind a recent attack on Rogan by the head of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Kim Williams, at the Australian Press Club (Williams took over the position at ABC at the start of 2024).  Williams described Rogan as 'malevolent' - a person that 'preys on the fears of the public'.

    Australian Broadcasting Corporation boss Kim Williams launches an unhinged tirade against Joe Rogan (@joerogan):

    "People like Mr. Rogan prey on people's vulnerabilities. They prey on fear. They prey on anxiety."

    "I personally find it deeply repulsive, and to think that someone… pic.twitter.com/NNenTOkiqP
    — Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) November 27, 2024

Many would refer to the venomous comments spit by Kim Williams as gaslighting and projection.  Joe Rogan is popular because of his sincerity, a quality which is severely lacking in modern journalism.  It's the establishment media that commonly exploits fear and disinformation to set the public into a frenzy; it's this very behavior that caused millions of consumers to abandon mainstream outlets in the first place.

The ABC reported in 2023 that public trust in corporate media and the government was in steep decline post-covid.  Instead of asking why this is the case and having the courage to participate in some self examination, media elites have instead chosen to blame podcasters like Joe Rogan (and the supposed ignorance of the public) for their fall from grace.

When ABC radio host Raf Epstein (an employee) asked Williams to speak further about his views on Mr Rogan and expand on his broad-brush attack, the ABC boss dredged up old covid-era accusations with no validity.

Epstein:  “Are you worried that podcasts that don’t provide the scrutiny that you might get on the ABC, that they are the future, and that we really are going out of fashion?”

Williams:  “Well, I would hope that we're the best antidote to misinformation and, more alarmingly, disinformation...I mean, Joe Rogan did an enormous, in my view, an enormous amount of damage back in 2020 and 2021, when he was particularly virulent in many of his remarks about vaccinations...I don’t think people have unlimited license to say what they want, simply because they believe something to be so...”

It's important to note that covid cases and deaths plunged in 2021 well before the experimental mRNA vaccines were widely released to the public.  It should also be noted that the vaccines did not prevent transmission as officials originally claimed.

Williams then turned to gaslighting.  Angry that he had received so much criticism online for his comments, he accused Rogan fans of being "made of glass" and unable to handle critique.

Williams:  “What fascinates me is you say something negative about Joe Rogan – and I have been swarmed with the most unbelievably vicious responses. I got one this morning that said that I should stay in my lane and watch out, and you read it and you think, ‘What are you saying to me?’”

Epstein:  “Do you think they’ve got glass jaws?”

Williams:  “Their whole body is made of glass. How can people react in such a, frankly, demonic fashion? I really stand back in disbelief..."

Keep in mind, ABC news has shut off comments on the Youtube video of Williams' Press Club interview.  Exactly the kind of behavior you would expect from a mainstream propagandist with a glass jaw.

Asked whether podcasts were “a threat” to the ABC, Willaims answered in the affirmative.

“Of course they’re a threat to the ABC. I think they’re a threat to all views that are contrary into their own...If they represent the newfound mainstream, our society has deep troubles, and the only response that is available is to back education and knowledge...Knowledge is the is the antidote to this kind of hysterical rubbish.”

Considering the reality that the alternative media has been consistently proven right while the corporate media has been consistently exposed as dishonest, this kind of rhetoric from Williams rings rather humorous.  The attacks on alternative personalities like Rogan stink of desperation.  The last gasps of a dying institution long bereft of honor or honesty.

Calls Grow for Bill Gates’ Arrest

Calls Grow for Bill Gates’ Arrest After He Admits Using India as a ‘Kind of Laboratory’ to Test Vaccines
Frank Bergman
December 8, 2024

Billionaire Bill Gates has provoked a widespread and escalating backlash after he admitted that he’s been using India as a “kind of laboratory” to test his “vaccines” and conduct other experiments on Indian citizens.

Gates made the remarks during a recent interview with fellow Jeffrey Epstein-linked billionaire Reid Hoffman.

The Microsoft co-founder gloated during the interview that he uses India as “a kind of laboratory to try things.”

Gates claims that his experiments on Indians will ensure that people are “better off” in the future.

“And it’s kind of a laboratory to try things that then when you prove them out in India you can take to other places,” Gates told Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

“And so, our biggest non-U.S. office for the [Gates Foundation] is in, is in India.

“And the most number of pilot rollout things we’re doing anywhere in the world are with partners in India.”

The comments from Gates have triggered outrage on social media.

People have been flooding X to blast Gates for using human beings as guinea pigs, according to Natural News.

Many have started calling for Gates’ arrest and accuse the billionaire of committing “crimes against humanity.”

“Arrest Bill Gates for crimes against humanity,” Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) declared in a post in X.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is also highly active in India.

In India, rules and regulations are far more relaxed.

Pfizer tests deadly, experimental drugs on the Indian people.

India is used as a testing ground before vaccines are rolled out for public use throughout the West.

“If your governments weren’t under the influence of the World Economic Forum’s young global leaders, they would never have opposed government agencies conducting their own clinical trials for new medicines entering the country,” “OurVoicesMatter” (@OV_Matter) posted in response to Gates’s remarks.

“Just look at what happened with Pfizer when India proposed conducting their own trials.”

Another X user noted how casually and openly Gates talks about his eugenics agenda.

“Treating a whole country as a testing ground shows a complete lack of respect for its people,” they said.

“Seriously, why do they let this lunatic do this stuff??” asked another about Gates.

“He’s not a doctor!” they added.

“He’s some psycho egomaniac that for some reason some clowns listen to.”

“Is he saying that there are so many Indians that it doesn’t matter, or that their lives are worth less?” wrote another.

“If he is, that is actual racism, as opposed to the bigotry that is normally labeled as racism in the media etc.”

Another argued that India has been is being ravaged and raped by multinational corporations and Western governments for profit.

In a post on X,  “shashi kusuma” (@ShashiKusuma) said:

“Although there have been great strides made in the last few years on the infrastructure and economic front and especially in the space and tech front, and Despite conventional PR, India has become a free for all for thugs and free for all gunda Raj due to the loss of any sense of long term vision based on fundamentals, loss of identity, loss of sovereignty, with too many home grown enemies (portrayed as social justice warriors fighting for democracy) amplified by outside influences that are working hard to Balkanize and destroy the civilization piece meal.”

“This is yet another example of such debauchery.”

EU alarmed as birth rates plummet...

Actually EU is showing fake anxiety.

Decreasing world population had been the intention of Globalists (spearheaded by WEF). So, they unleashed two bio-weapons -- coronavirus and covid injections.

Virus killed many people while many were murdered in hospital using Midazolam and Ventilators.

Covid vax caused miscarriages, pregnancy difficulty, still-births, heavy menstrual bleeding, etc in women.

Covid vax resulted in lower sperm counts in men.

Both of the above measures is helping to reduce world population by design!!!

European Union Sounds Alarm as Birth Rates Plummet to Record Low
Frank Bergman
Dec 8, 2024

Official data from the European Union (EU) has revealed that the bloc’s birth rate has plummeted to a record low.

However, the data shows that the bloc’s overall population has been rising due to immigration, despite the drop in births.

The shocking plunge was revealed in the latest data from the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.

The latest figures show that the number of babies born in the EU fell to a record low last year.

Despite this, the total population has been on the rise due to mass immigration.

Most of the influx of migrants has come from the Middle East and third-world nations.

According to Eurostat’s figures, births across the EU’s 27 member states stood at 3,665,000 in 2023.

This marks a decline of 5.5% year-on-year.

Birth rates have been falling steadily across the EU in recent years.

Meanwhile, immigration rates have been soaring.

The number of births last year was the lowest in the EU countries since comparable data was first collected in 1961.

The annual decline is the largest on record, the Financial Times (FT) reports.

The sharpest drops in births over the past decade have been recorded in Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states.

Demographic experts polled by the FT believe the longstanding trend of Europeans having fewer babies may have been exacerbated by concerns over economic and political tensions on the international level.

They also believe the worst surge in inflation in a generation, and fears over “climate change” and the Covid pandemic have put people off from starting families.

According to a recent report, the Total Fertility Rate has halved from 3.3 children per woman in 1960 to 1.5 in 2022 in the 38 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD includes 22 EU member states plus Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and others.

According to Eurostat, all EU regions have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 live births per woman.

Nevertheless, the population of the EU has been on the rise over the past decade, with the exception of the pandemic year of 2021.

The most notable jump was recorded in 2023, according to Eurostat figures.

“The negative natural change (more deaths than births) was outnumbered by the positive net migration,” the agency said in a release in July.

Eurostat attributed the population growth to increased migration after the pandemic.

The agency also noted the influx of immigrants from Ukraine who received temporary protection status in the EU.

While Ukraine is in Europe, the country is not a member state of the EU.

Modern cars collect and share your data !!!

These car brands are collecting and sharing your data with third parties
By James Purtill
9 Oct, 2024

In short:

An investigation by consumer advocacy group Choice found most of Australia's popular car brands collect and share "driver data", ranging from braking patterns to video footage.

Kia and Hyundai collect voice recognition data from inside their cars and sell it to an artificial intelligence software training company.

What's next?

Privacy and consumer rights advocates are pushing for law reform to limit data collection to what is "fair and reasonable".

Popular car brands are collecting and sharing driver data from braking patterns and odometer readings to vehicle location and voice recognition information, consumer advocacy group Choice has found.

Choice sifted through the privacy policies of the 10 most popular car brands in Australia to identify which tracked their drivers and passengers.

As car makers add microphones, sensors and other internet-connected features, cars are fast becoming all-seeing data-harvesting machines dubbed "smartphones on wheels".

But many car makers are not being up-front about data collection and often keep the fine print in their privacy policies vaguely worded, Choice investigative reporter Jarni Blakkarly said.

"We found that seven out of 10 of those car brands contain concerning privacy policies that allow them to track driver data, driving habits, and sell that data to third parties.

"We found Hyundai, Kia and Tesla to be the most concerning."

What data are they collecting?

Kia and Hyundai, which have the same parent company, collect voice recognition data from inside their cars and sell this to the artificial intelligence (AI) software training company Credence, the Choice investigation found.

"We think that the average Hyundai driver, the average Kia driver, when they purchase their car, have no idea that this is happening," Mr Blakkarly said.

"They haven't really properly consented to their voice being used to train AI models."

Tesla collects short images and videos from cameras inside and outside their cars. Tesla workers have been caught sharing among themselves highly invasive camera recordings of Tesla customers in the nude, as well as images of crashes and road-rage incidents.

The videos and images Tesla collects may be shared with third parties, Mr Blakkarly said.

"The way their privacy policy is written is incredibly vague and gives them space to potentially share that data."

In general, privacy policies were vaguely worded, he added. Mazda, for instance, collects and shares "voice consumption" data but the privacy policy does not explain what this means.

"I think, in many cases, privacy policies are written in a way that's deliberately confusing and it's not clear for consumers," Mr Blakkarly said.

The Choice list isn't definitive, and generally serves to highlight the lack of transparency around data collection and sharing among connected cars.

But having a car that isn't connected doesn't mean your data isn't collected, either.

Car makers that don't yet sell connected cars in Australia may still be collecting and sharing customer data gathered in other ways, Katharine Kemp, a privacy law expert at the University of New South Wales, said.

"There are many vehicles without connected services available in Australia, and manufacturers who don't offer connected services can still engage in concerning practices with customer data."

The findings of the Choice investigation are similar to those of the US-based Mozilla Foundation, which last year found 25 car brands collected customer data ranging from facial expressions to sexual activity and where and how people drive.

Cars were a "privacy nightmare on wheels" and "the official worst category of products for privacy" the foundation said it had ever reviewed.

How long has this been going on for?

The rate of car-data collection is accelerating as high-end internet-connected features make their way into more affordable models.

The tipping point happened about two years ago, Mr Blakkarly said.

"But it's ubiquitous now. It's across the range. It's in all the vehicles that are coming out."

Choice investigated car-data privacy after an "avalanche" of responses to a story published earlier this year about a Queensland man who backed out of purchasing a Toyota ute after learning about the company's data collection practices.

Toyota collects and shares vehicle location and driver behaviour data, including scoring a driver's acceleration, braking and cornering behaviour during each trip.

Many privacy policies gave car brands the option of sharing data with insurers, Mr Blakkarly said.

"We don't have evidence of insurers in Australia purchasing this information.

"I'm not sure it's been happening here, but it's certainly something we could be seeing in the not-too-distant future."

How do I disable my car's data collection?

If you use an app for your car, head into the app's settings, and look for any sort of data sharing options, usually named "data privacy" or "data usage".

Where possible, opt out of sharing any data with third parties, and see if you can disable GPS location tracking when not in use for navigation.

Be cautious about connecting your phone to your car's infotainment system. Limit the permissions you grant the car's system.

The process for deleting any data collected is unique to most car models and types.

The free online resource Privacy4Cars amassed step-by-step delete instructions for tens of thousands of vehicles, whose settings often differ by model, make, year and optional extras.

The website covers the US, Canada, UK and the EU, so some Australian models may not be on it, site founder Andrea Amico said.

"You guys have a thing called Holden which I'd never heard of before," he said.

"[Privacy4Cars] is not a perfect tool, but it's a hell of a lot better than what you have otherwise, which is trying to figure it out by yourself or asking your dealer."

Are governments and car buyers concerned about this?

Awareness of how much data cars collect is growing sharply.

Last month the US moved to ban a huge array of Chinese-made cars over fears the Chinese government could spy on their drivers.

Mr Amico said the "underlying data" gathered by Chinese-made cars was the same as other car brands, but there was a higher potential for misuse.

"Commercial surveillance is one thing, but the shadow gets much darker when you have government surveillance."

The Privacy4Cars page has seen a big uptick in traffic in the past two to three months, he said.

About three in four Australians disagree or strongly disagree with video or audio recordings from inside a car being collected by car companies, according to a nationally representative Choice survey conducted in June 2024.

Domestic violence support services are also increasingly concerned.

For years, the Women's Service Network has been aware of perpetrators using connected cars to track those who are trying to escape them, but was reluctant to speak publicly on the topic until now, CEO Karen Bentley said.

"We have to balance between educating people who might be experiencing abuse versus educating people who might choose to use [surveillance technology] to abuse.

"But there's been nearly a dozen articles about connected cars in 2024. The horse has bolted now."

She said a woman who fled an abusive relationship with three children and few belongings found her perpetrator easily tracked her down to each high-security refuge she visited. Staff eventually realised the man was using anti-theft technology inside the woman's car.

"We'll certainly be starting to do some training around [connected car data privacy] for frontline workers and shelters and refuges," Ms Bentley said.

"Perhaps we need to be thinking of cars as like phones, like GPS devices."

California recently introduced legislation requiring car makers selling internet-connected cars to do more to protect domestic abuse survivors, including enabling drivers to easily turn off location access from inside the vehicle.

Last year, a woman unsuccessfully sued Tesla, alleging the company failed to act after she repeatedly complained that her husband was stalking and harassing her using the car maker's technology, despite a restraining order.

"Cars that we let into Australia have got to meet basic safety standards," Ms Bentley said.

"Data privacy needs to be included in those standards."

Is this data collection legal?

Yes. Australian privacy law is based on the "notice and consent" model, where consumers make individual privacy decisions about their personal information.

Car makers are generally free to use your data as long as they give notice in their privacy policies.

The Privacy Act was drafted in 1988, long before internet-connected devices.

"The deficiencies in a 'notice and consent' approach to data privacy regulation are quite evident when it comes to connected vehicles," Dr Kemp, from UNSW, said.

"Privacy notices can be lacking in key information or definitions. And 'consent' can be quite fictional when defaults are set to less privacy and there is limited ability to opt out."

A review of Australian privacy law by the Attorney-General's Department released last year recommended the Act be amended to include an objective test to determine whether the collection and sharing of data was "reasonable in the circumstances".

The federal government introduced long-awaited privacy law reforms last month, but did not include the proposed "fair and reasonable" test.

Dr Kemp said this was a mistake.

"A 'fair and reasonable' test for data practices may be better able to address the information and power imbalances that exist between car manufacturers and consumers."

Choice's Mr Blakkarly also backed a "fair and reasonable" test.

"[It would mean] companies can't go and just write the rules themselves and say, 'Well, it's written somewhere online in a 10,000-word privacy policy, so we can do whatever we want.'

"Privacy law reform is really what's needed here, but in the meantime do your own research and opt-out where you can."

Motor vehicle industry peak body the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) represents most of the car brands named in the Choice report.

A spokesperson told the ABC its members collected and shared data legally.

"FCAI members are committed to maintaining high standards with respect to consumer data protection and privacy, in line with relevant laws," the spokesperson said.

"The utilisation of data in vehicles, including through connected and autonomous vehicles, provide consumers with benefits through improvements in safety, performance and navigation as well as supporting general user experience and servicing improvements.

"The FCAI and its members will continue to engage proactively with government and other stakeholders regarding [the privacy law reforms]."