Cars Ranked the ‘Worst Product’ for Your Data Privacy
The experts at Mozilla rank various electronic products on how well they protect the private data you entrust them. They recently studied automobiles by reading through all the privacy policies of 25 automakers. The experts said what they found, “keeps us up at night.”
What data do automakers even collect? Modern cars can track your location, speed, acceleration, braking, and other driving habits. In fact, GM just got into trouble for selling this info to insurance companies. But many also can record photos, audio, or video. They know how well you maintain your car, where you set your seat, and even things such as your radio presets. The vast majority of these companies also reserve the right to combine this data and make inferences about you, such as your employment, family, and sexual orientation/sex life (yes, really).
Automakers also collect your personal and financial information in the buying process. Automakers with apps also have access to cell phone data.
Mozilla took points away from every automaker for how they say they’ll use your data. In addition, they all lost points for how poorly they are securing your private data. Every car brand Mozilla studied that is available in the U.S. lost points for denying you an option to delete the data they have collected.
A whopping 84% of automakers studied reserve the right to share and sell this data and their inferences. And in total 56% of automakers studied reserve the right to hand your data over to police who “request” it, whether or not they have an official warrant.
I do worry about how much my cellphone manufacturer, computer manufacturer, and software providers know about me. I make sure my passwords are good and check to see if my data has ever been in a leak. I thought I was doing everything right. But I never knew our biggest privacy risk may be the cars we commute in every day.
Next, find out whether the government records everywhere you drive with license plate scanners, or see a deep dive on your automotive data privacy in in the video below:
