YSK: Major car manufacturers admit in their privacy policies to collecting a wide range of your personal information, to illustrate:
- Nissan: Their US privacy policy states they can collect data on your “characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, and abilities.“
- Kia: Their data collection includes sensitive information like “genetic information, sex life, medical conditions, racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs,” and more. They share this data with various entities for different purposes.
- Mercedes: Admits to collecting and sharing extensive personal and car data, including biometric and geolocation data. They’ve had security issues, including a significant data leak in June 2022 affecting 1.6 million customers and will share the collected data with law enforcement if they deem “reasonably necessary.”
Why YSK: Understanding the extent of data collection by your car manufacturer is crucial for protecting your privacy and safety. Hopefully this helps you make more informed decisions about the vehicles you choose and the terms of service you agree to.
For more information, see this video for an in-depth exploration of which car manufacturers are involved in this extensive data collection, the specific methods they deploy to gather your information, and what they are actually doing with the data they collect.