INDIANAPOLIS — As modern cars become more like rolling computers, it might be a good time to ask “Is my car tracking me?”
The short answer is “yes.” The average vehicle on the road today has roughly 1,400 microchips in it. More drivers are connecting their cars to their smartphones, which contain some of our most sensitive information. Location history, contacts, call and texting logs are all linked up to many vehicles for convenience.
However, some may not find it so convenient to share such information with vehicles and automakers who track and sometimes share such sensitive information.
To find out how much your car is tracking and sharing about you, check out Vehicleprivacyreport.com. The website allows you to enter your car’s Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) for a specific list of what data points your auto maker tracks.
To test it out, I ran my own Hyundai Tuscan VIN in the search box. Not only does Hyundai track, personal identifiers, biometrics, location, and user profiles, but it also shares or cells that data to the government, service, providers, and affiliates.
Next, I entered the VIN on a coworker’s Jeep Grand Cherokee (with her permission). The tracking is the same as Hyundai, and Jeep with sharing the information with insurance companies, in addition to the other groups.
On a Nissan Rogue, I found Nissan is tracking your identifiers, location, and user profile and sharing or selling that with the government, affiliates, service, providers, and data brokers.
There is a way to limit how much information your car can collect.
Privacy4Cars has Apple and Android apps that allow you to pay the company to delete your personal information from your car, and any car you connect to. That includes your contacts, phone, log-in text messages, navigation, history, and more.
If you are concerned about this information being tracked and shared, the Privacy4Cars service could bring some peace of mind while you’re on and off the road.
