If your car connects to the internet, what personal data could it be sharing – and even selling? A new report on Australia’s 15 most popular car brands reveals these privacy concerns.

New research reveals serious privacy flaws in the data practices of new internet connected cars in Australia. It’s yet another reason why we need urgent reform of privacy laws.

Modern cars are increasingly equipped with internet-enabled features. Your “connected car” might automatically detect an accident and call emergency services, or send a notification if a child is left in the back seat.

But connected cars are also sophisticated surveillance devices. The data they collect can create a highly revealing picture of each driver. If this data is misused, it can result in privacy and security threats.

A report published today analysed the privacy terms from 15 of the most popular new car brands that sell connected cars in Australia.

    • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
      6·
      4 days ago

      I am less interested in ranking them based on what they do (because we can assume they just vacuum up everything anyway), and more in a ranking based on how easy the surveillance is to remove. Apparently for some cars the telematics module can be easily unplugged at least, losing you some non-critical functionality, but on others it may be integrated tighter.

    • HereIAm@lemmy.world
      17·
      5 days ago

      Any company that serves European customers have to follow GDPR. Any company that breaks it can be fined by the EU. Hence why a bunch of American websites rather just block European browsers instead of changing their cookie/data retention policies.