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Old 07-18-2008, 08:06 AM
KiwiJochen KiwiJochen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MARCH374
Thanks for the replies. My vehicle is a 2006 x5. I thought that the same way your cell phone co can track your whereabouts using GPS the X5 gps might use/have the same information of the vehicles location(s) stored away.
no, the GPS simply receives satellite signals and calculates the vehicle position to display on a map.

There is no automatic transmitting of the vehicle positional data to any company.
There is also no storage of historical vehicle positional data inside the vehicle.

Some countries offer a BMW Assist program, whereby the vehicle can transmit current positional data to the Assist Centre, but this function is activated by the user and the data is only transmitted when the User presses the button. It is not transmitted on a regular basis.

Remember: cellphone companies know where the cellphone is - this is a fundamental function of a cellphone and is used to direct calls to the correct phone using the correct cellphone transmitter tower.

However, a vehicle's location, as determined by the nav system, is not required to be broadcast to any company. You have to ask yourself: if this happened, who would pay for the continual cellphone data connection?
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