The new Toyota RAV4 is pretty good fun to drive. That may not seem to be the most thrilling of facts, but it sets the scene for what happened next. While testing the new RAV4 on the launch event being held near Malaga, I found myself on a tight and twisty road snaking its way up into the hills near the town of Coin. Tipping the RAV enthusiastically into a fast, well-sighted corner, I was thoroughly enjoying myself until the car’s electronics decided that my rapid steering movements were not fun, but foreboding, and must mean that I was swerving to avoid something in the road. Bing went the dashboard, as a message flashed up on the digital driver’s screen which told me that the RAV4’s forward-facing camera, which is mounted in the windscreen and spends most of its time looking for reasons to trigger the automated emergency braking, had now switched to dash cam mode and would save the previous 20 seconds of footage in case it was needed for evidence in the event of a crash. I was, I confess, a little surprised by this. I mean, I was driving enthusiastically but hardly dangerously, and my cornering techniques have never raised any cause for alarm in the past. Toyota’s implacable electronics clearly thought otherwise. READ MORE This dash cam function can potentially be useful, but it’s also indicative of a current trend of massive data gathering as your car drives. Unsurprisingly, your car’s various sensors can log and analyse all sorts of information about where and how you’re driving, but the use of that data is ramping up considerably now, and that is starting to sound some concerning privacy warning bells. For some time now, car makers have been touting the benefits of ‘swarm’ data from cars. Cars