Your car and its mobile app are probably handing over all kinds of data to tech companies

Modern-day vehicles built with connected car technology such as WiFi and GPS collect reams of data about its owners. And that data is not staying private, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Northeastern University.

That conclusion isn’t new, there have been numerous investigations and lawsuits exposing how driving data is collected and shared with third parties, including insurance companies. What the study reveals is just how vast the problem is and how hard it is for consumers to avoid, short of not using the vehicle or its convenient features like remote start and unlock.

Researchers in partnership with Consumer Reports tested 21 late-model vehicles from 17 automakers, including GM brands Cadillac and Chevrolet as well as Ford, Lucid, Rivian, Tesla, Toyota, and more. They also examined 30 companion mobile apps to “understand the privacy implications of the connected vehicle ecosystem.” The peer-reviewed study will be published this week.

The implications aren’t great for consumers, whose data is being shared with tech companies including Adobe, ContentSquare, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Snap, and Yahoo.

The findings were shared with the different manufacturers and all of them, with the exception of Honda, shifted blame elsewhere and often to consumers, the researchers said. (Honda did respond by improving its data collection practices after learning about the findings and ordered its vendor Amplitude to deleta all geolocation data it had received.)

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