Like With Smartphones And Tablets, There Are Many Ways Your Car Spies On You

Your smartphone, tablet and other devices are spying on us. Your car does the same thing. You may want to read the user agreement. Nissan, for example, includes things like: “sexual activity, health diagnosis data and genetic information."

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Aaron Turpen

February 02, 20255 min read

A driver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, uses the large internet-connected system on his Tesla Cybertruck in this file photo.
A driver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, uses the large internet-connected system on his Tesla Cybertruck in this file photo. (Kevin Killough for Cowboy State Daily)

Your smartphone, tablet and other devices are spying on us. We all know this and seem to have chosen to live with it. Location data, search histories, apps usage, photos — they collect a lot of information.

And likely sharing most of it.

Your car does the same thing.

As vehicles get more and more computerized, so does their collection of data increase. And no, owning an older car won’t necessarily exempt you from this. This trend has been growing for years — a couple of decades at least since the first in-car interfaces became a thing.

Today’s modern vehicles can collect everything from GPS-based location data to driving habits and biometric information from their users, whether or not smartphones are connected to them.

Some vehicles even collect in-cabin video and audio, ostensibly to improve self-driving and driver assistance systems.

Once that data is sold to a third party, who knows where it ends up?

Wyoming Insurance Commissioner Jeff Rude says his office tries to keep an eye on how insurance companies, for instance, might be trying to capitalize on this data-rich superhighway.

“There’s so much data out there,” he said. “Buried in the paperwork when you buy a new car (is an agreement) that they will have this data — and they’ll sell it.”

Yep, It’s The Small Print

The agreements, like those on your phone or computer, are buried in a lengthy novelette of legalese writing. It nearly takes a microscope to make out this fine print.

Most of us never read that stuff. We just accept it, sign it and move on.

For automakers, the data is largely used for tuning and improvements to the systems in vehicles as they evolve.

Learning how consumers use their infotainment interfaces, for example, lets companies see how to make that big screen in the center of the dashboard more ergonomic and useful to owners over time.

It’s one of the reasons that volume and tuning knobs, once disappearing from dashboards, are making a comeback. Most users prefer them over virtual buttons or steering-mounted options.

All this data also is another revenue stream. Along with using it to improve their products, automakers also sell it. Data is valuable to many industries, and the more the better.

Who And How Much?

Some auto companies are more likely to collect more data than others.

Ford and Toyota have said that they collect only vehicle performance and driving systems information. This is used to find common issues, improve those systems and help with tuning the next generation of that vehicle.

Not surprisingly, after contacting more than half a dozen major manufacturers, Cowboy State Daily got no response beyond the generic “we take our customers’ privacy seriously.”

We do know that most manufacturers are either contemplating or actively selling driving habits, location histories and more to third parties.

Stories of people finding out that their connectivity plans with General Motors have been sold are now surfacing. That includes how that data was sold to insurers who used it to adjust rates.

A company called LexisNexis specializes in this sort of data buying for corporate use. When contacted by Cowboy State Daily, LexisNexis said that it does not discuss how specific consumer data is used.

What Can They Track?

Agreements from various automotive manufacturers can be specific or blanket.

Nissan, for example, includes things the company cannot possibly track via a car, such as “sexual activity, health diagnosis data and genetic information” as part of its user agreements.

Open lists that do not specify what is to be collected, just using general terms like “driving data” or “in-vehicle data” are more common. These blanket descriptions could mean anything.

Investigators are also getting in on the data troves.

A car’s computers can record speeds, stops, when (and even which) doors were opened and closed, locations and more. Even whether a connected phone sent texts or calls.

Government agencies also aren’t prohibited from requesting (and usually getting) this information without requiring a warrant.

More than half of all car brands include verbiage in their privacy policies that allows voluntary sharing of a user’s data with law enforcement. And so far, the law is ambiguous about this data regarding privacy rights.

Let’s not even go into what could happen should hackers get this data.

Such as the huge breach Subaru recently suffered wherein hackers gained administrative access to that company’s popular Starlink over-the-air system. Breaches at other companies have happened too.

Wyoming is one of many states that does not have consumer opt-out laws for data privacy. Our neighbors in Colorado, Nebraska and Utah have enacted laws to allow consumers to option out of data being sold to third parties.

Our vehicles, like our phones and other devices, are getting more and more data hungry. That data doesn’t just sit in the vehicle. It gets uploaded, stored and shared.

Aaron Turpen can be reached at: TurpenAaron@gmail.com

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Aaron Turpen

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