Your Car Is Sharing More Private Data Than Your Smartphone. Who’s Getting It?
The Drive ·
When researchers contacted automakers for answers, most passed the buck and hid behind their vendor contracts. Only one took action and changed its location-data policy. The post Your Car Is Sharing More Private Data Than Your Smartphone. Who’s Getting It? appeared first on The Drive .
Modern vehicles, like every other technology device we own, from smartphones to fridges and even dog collars, are connected to the internet 24/7. They learn from us, know things about us, and most of the time use that information to make our lives easier. Cars, specifically, collect vital driving and behavior data that is borderline impossible to opt out of if you want to use your vehicle’s modern convenience features. And a new study recently found that your sensitive information (some of which isn’t even car-related) is being shared with far more parties than you realize.
The only way you’ll be surprised by what you’re about to read is if you’ve been in a coma for the last decade or two. But even for those of us who are mildly aware of how the technology we rely on every day interacts with us and the data we generate, this recent study by Boston’s Northeastern University in partnership with Consumer Reports will make you raise an eyebrow—several times.
The study covered 21 vehicles of 19 different brands (listed below) and 30 companion mobile apps that process and handle user data.
You can peruse the 18-page paper here , but you can also see the main takeaways below:
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The post Your Car Is Sharing More Private Data Than Your Smartphone. Who’s Getting It? appeared first on The Drive .