Your new car doesn’t know exactly where you’re going, but it sure knows Where did you live. And it’s sharing all your sensibilities data with car companies like Ford, Toyota, And chevrolet — as well as shady third parties under certain circumstances, according to Wired. Modern cars have become smartphone rivals in terms of data collection, reportedly generating up to 25 gigabytes of data per hour.
The data includes things like full name, address, phone number, email and license number, more or less meaningful. It seems that every purchase is now accompanied by a polite request for your email or phone number, which is annoying but has become a practice we mostly accept.
However, modern cars are also recording detailed driving data, including date and time of use, vehicle speed, acceleration and braking as well as details of any particular trip. such as location, weather, and execution route. Some of the latest models are also monitoring “refueling operations”, battery levels, images from onboard cameras, and even biometrics like facial recognition and fingerprint data.
This driver data is handled differently by the automakers, who set their own policies when it comes to data collection and then have varying degrees of compromise. For example, Toyota’s vehicle data collection will be different from Chevrolet’s, such as Wired note:
In addition to information about who you are, Toyota may also collect “driving behavior.” This includes information such as “acceleration and speed, steering and braking functions, and the direction you are traveling”. It can also collect preferences in your vehicle, favorite locations saved on its system and image collected by camera or external sensor.
Some Toyota models can also scan your face for facial recognition when you step into one of its vehicles. This can verify a driver’s identity and the records stored on the vehicle, says Corey Proffitt, senior manager of connected communications at Toyota. “This data cannot be read by humans, and any facial features are only stored on the vehicle and not transmitted to Toyota,” Proffitt said.
The report adds that Toyota’s vehicles, including Tacoma, Camry, Rav4, and Highlander, gives owners the option to opt-out of consent before sending any information to Toyota, and owners can “turn off all data transmissions on their vehicle” by contacting the service. customer service.
On the other hand, Chevrolet’s data collection on the famous Chevy Silverado goes a little further than that. Wired:
When it first started, GM collected people’s identifying information, such as names, mailing addresses, and email addresses. by chevrolet document says it can collect information about your vehicle, such as battery, ignition system and window data, transmission status and diagnostic information. It can also collect, among other things, your location, route history, speed and “brake and turn/turning events”.
The documents also say data “from camera images and sensor data, voice command information, stability control or anti-lock events, security/theft alarms and information systems infotainment (including radio and rear-seat infotainment) and Wi-Fi data usage” may be collected. The company may also receive “information about your home energy use,” related to electric vehicle charging and discharging.
The Chevy truck’s main rival, the Ford F-150, includes similar information but the F-150 takes an even closer look at the driver’s habits through data collected from the built-in microphone:
[…] This data includes vehicle data, such as tire pressure, information on the functioning of components, and information about charging the vehicle if the vehicle is electric.
The company may also collect driving characteristics and data, such as your speed, how you depress the pedals, and seat belt-related data. Information about your direction of travel, exact location, speed and local weather may be collected from the vehicle.
Voice recognition systems in some of its vehicles can collect information as they are listening. Its “media analysis” deals with capture information about what you hear in your carincludes “station, volume, channel, media source, title, artist, and genre presets.
It might be bad enough knowing that all this sensitive information is being shared with manufacturers, but Wired says information may fall into the hands of data brokers and other third parties.
Automakers will sometimes share or sell data with insurance companies, governments, and data brokers. It’s not clear how fast gigabytes of data are collected by new cars or exactly how much money automakers are making from selling this information. Whatever it is, as long as the driver doesn’t see a dividend, it’s likely to be too much.
