The ways that car companies collect and share your data are so vast and complicated that we wrote an entire piece on how that works. The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you – from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car – in huge quantities.
I don’t have a car with always connectivity. However, sometime in future I will. I want to ask is there a way to turn off the cellular connection. Simply put, I don’t to share my sex life with any car company or the government.
A few of the car companies we researched take manipulating your consent one step further by making you complicit in getting “consent” from others, saying it’s on you to inform them of your car’s privacy policies. Like when Nissan makes you “promise to educate and inform all users and occupants of your Vehicle about the Services and System features and limitations, the terms of the Agreement, including terms concerning data collection and use and privacy, and the Nissan Privacy Policy.” OK, Nissan! We would love to meet the social butterfly who drafted this line.
Also, the fact that Nissan requires you to read the privacy policy to your passages before they get into the car. Is silly.