What cheeky, nosey devils these car companies are:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-09/car-brands-are-tracking-and-shari...



Tesla    Collects voice and video and shares some data with third parties
Hyundai   Collects and shares voice recognition and other data with third parties
Kia    Collects and shares voice recognition and other data with third parties
Mazda   Collects and shares driving data, as well as "voice consumption" data
MG     Collects driver data, unclear if shared
Ford     Collects and shares driver data, but not biometric data
Toyota    Collects and shares driver data, including driver behaviour and vehicle location, but not biometric data
Isuzu Ute   Does not collect or share driver data in Australia
Subaru   Does not collect or share driver data in Australia



In short:

An investigation by consumer advocacy group Choice found most of Australia's popular car brands collect and share "driver data", ranging from braking patterns to video footage.

Kia and Hyundai collect voice recognition data from inside their cars and sell it to an artificial intelligence software training company.
What's next?

Privacy and consumer rights advocates are pushing for law reform to limit data collection to what is "fair and reasonable".


Choice sifted through the privacy policies of the 10 most popular car brands in Australia to identify which track their drivers and passengers.



But many car makers are not being up-front about data collection and often keep the fine print in their privacy policies vaguely worded, Choice investigative reporter Jarni Blakkarly said.

"We found that seven out of 10 of those car brands contain concerning privacy policies that allows them to track driver data, driving habits, and sell that data to third parties.

"We found Hyundai, Kia and Tesla to be the most concerning."

https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/how-australias-biggest-car-brands-are-coll...





Experts have called for privacy laws to be changed amid concerns over
carmakers' collection of customer data through connected services.


Speaking to CHOICE, Dr Vanessa Teague from the Australian National University’s College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics said the data collection undertaken by these companies was “totally unacceptable”, and called for new laws to be implemented to prevent it.

“The idea that you can de-identify an image, or a voice is de-identified, it’s nonsense,” Dr Teague said.

“What these car companies are doing is totally unacceptable. It should be illegal. These practices are good evidence that we need the Privacy Act updated or the Privacy Act enforced, because none of this should be acceptable in our country.

“Opt-out is not the answer; you should have to opt-in to some of these features if you want them.

Setanta wrote on Oct 9^th, 2024 at 9:08pm:



I think we'll get new laws to stop them.

On TV tonight they said in a time of war China
could disable all the Chinese cars in Australia remotely.

I will bear this in mind, when I go to the marketplace with a measly ten grand in hand.

The older the beast, the better.

I think my iphone does all that already.