OpSec: Your Car May Be Spying On You

From PJ Media: "Spyware on Wheels: Your Car Reports on Your Activities, Even Those in the Back Seat." An excerpt:

    While you’ve got your eye on the road, your car has its spyware on you — and is reporting your every move back to Detroit, Tokyo, or Stuttgart. According to a new study by the Mozilla Foundation, “cars are the worst product category” the organization has ever reviewed for privacy, collecting and reporting “how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car,” and even whatever details they can glean about your sex life.

    Of the 25 car brands analyzed by Mozilla, the overwhelming majority — 84% — sold car owners’ data to third parties. That’s 21 out of 25, for those keeping score at home.

    You didn’t think all those cameras and sensors in recent vintage cars were there for your convenience, did you?

    “Car companies have so many more data-collecting opportunities than other products and apps we use,” Mozilla warns, “and can gather even more information about you from third party sources like Sirius XM or Google Maps. It’s a mess.”

    Worse, more than half the companies surveyed “also say they can share your information with the government or law enforcement in response to a ‘request.'”

    Not a subpoena. Not a court order. Just a request.

    “Car brands,” the report concludes, “often do whatever they can legally get away with to your personal data.” ...

Something you might want to think about if you are checking on caches of supplies or visiting a favorite fishing hole or hunting site or just meeting up with friends.

• More: "Nissan, Kia can collect data on drivers’ ‘sexual activity’ and ‘sex lives’: privacy watchdog"--New York Post.

    The foundation said most car companies can comb through a variety of sources to glean personal information about drivers after they pair their smartphones with a vehicle’s connected services.

    “This invasive harvesting of information is collected via a web of sensors, microphones, cameras and the phones, apps, and connected services you use in your vehicle,” according to Mozilla Foundation.

    The car firms can then take that data and sell it to or share it with vendors, insurance companies and others, according to watchdog.