Today’s cars are truly technological marvels. No longer do you have to try and balance the map book on your lap while steering or fumble through a CD wallet to change music. But all this connectivity comes with a price – your privacy.
Modern motor vehicles are packed with as much tech as their price tag will allow, and connectivity is the name of the game. Through wireless internet connections, your car can now be pinpointed on a digital map, your engine’s performance can be monitored remotely, and you can even access your car without the keys.
All these extra features require data to be collected from your car and transferred wirelessly to a third party.
But who is collecting the data? And what are they doing with it? Consumer group Choice has conducted an investigation into Australia’s ten most popular car brands has revealed which companies are tracking and monitoring drivers, and the short answer is – almost all of them are.
The 10 brands were Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, MG, Isuzu Ute, Mitsubishi, Kia, Mazda, Ford and Tesla. CHOICE looked at each of the brand’s privacy policies to assess the types of data they’re collecting from drivers, what they do with that data, and whether they allow consumers to opt in or out of data collection practices.
Who is taking what?
The data showed out of the 10 car makers investigated, only three don’t collect or share any driving data from their vehicles sold in Australia: Mitsubishi, Subaru and Isuzu Ute. So, if digital privacy is a priority for you, these are the cars for you.
The rest unfortunately do, but to what degree varies a bit between manufacturers.
Choice found Toyota, Australia’s highest-selling car brand, collects vehicle location data, as well as information on the driver’s acceleration, braking and cornering performance.
This data is then sent from your car to Toyota, who share it with “related companies and third-party service providers”.
They found Ford also collects and shares driver data with third parties, such as “related companies and contractors”, although it did tell Choice it doesn’t “sell data to brokers”.
Chinese brand MG collects and shares data with a range of “service providers” as well, but says it doesn’t share with third parties “other than to provide functionality”. Choice says they found that clause “vague” and they received no response when they contacted MG for clarification.
Mazda told Choice it collects “voice consumption” data and shares it with service providers and undisclosed third parties, but also didn’t respond to Choice’s requests for clarification.
The worst of the worst
Three brands stood out as being particularly problematic when it comes to collecting and sharing your data: electric car makers Tesla, and Korean brands Hyundai and Kia who share the same parent company.
Rafi Alam, Choice senior campaigns and policy advisor, says these three had the most cavalier attitudes to protecting customer privacy of the group.
“We discovered that Kia, Hyundai and Tesla were the worst offenders when it came to protecting the privacy of their customers,” he says.
“Kia and Hyundai both collect and share voice recognition data with third parties, along with other information.”
But he said Elon Musk’s Tesla was the worst of the lot, collecting voice recognition and camera data from inside your vehicle.
“Tesla takes it one step further, collecting ‘short video clips and images’ captured from the camera inside the vehicle, and shares some data with third parties,” he says.
Time for change
Mr Alam says the investigation shows that Australia’s privacy laws need to be updated and that they don’t reflect today’s highly connected world.
“Under the current laws, businesses are able to write their own rules through their privacy policies. At a minimum, the federal government should implement a fair-and-reasonable-use test,” he says.
Are you comfortable with how much data your car is collecting? Should consumers be able to opt out? Let us know in the comments section below.
Also read: Rental database service breached privacy, watchdog finds
