Modern cars are a privacy nightmare, and there’s no way to opt out
According to a new report from Mozilla, every major car brand has glaring privacy concerns — so much so that Mozilla ranked cars as “the official worst category of products for privacy.” That’s below notoriously privacy-unaware product categories, like mental health apps and sex toys.
Once they’ve collected that data, they’re not very careful with it. In fact, 84% of car brands share your personal data, and 76% of them sell it.
Perhaps the worst part is that, unlike devices like TVs, there’s no way for the user to opt out of these privacy violations. Ninety-two percent of car brands give the user no control over their data — with only two brands giving users the right to have their data deleted.
You would assume that the tech-focused new brands would at least be better at handling user privacy — but on the contrary, #Tesla was the worst offender. Tesla cars represented the second product ever to fail in every single category of Mozilla’s study — meaning that Tesla cars collect user data without giving the user control, and they fail to secure that data.
Despite how bad Tesla is, the second-worst was arguably creepier. Nissan earned its place in the second-worst slot for some of its data collection categories, which include the user’s “sexual activity.” Kia also collects information about the user’s “sex life,” and a hefty six car companies collect users’ “genetic information.”
Yeah, it’s pretty absurd.