Enlarge (credit: USPTO)
A rather dystopian if somewhat expected use for connected cars started doing the rounds this week with the discovery of a patent, published last month, titled "Systems and methods to repossess a vehicle."
Filed by Ford, the patent describes a system whereby a bank or leasing company could remotely disable specific features—the air conditioning or the radio—or perhaps the car itself in cases where the person leasing the vehicle hasn't kept up with payments.
Perhaps in recognition of the fact that the US has become an extremely car-centric society since the 1950s, the patent describes how "the lockout condition may be lifted momentarily in case of an emergency situation so as to allow the vehicle to travel to a medical facility when the emergency is a medical emergency."
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