Connected cars’ illegal data collection and use now on FTC’s “radar”
The Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Technology has issued a warning to automakers that sell connected cars. Companies that offer such products “do not have the free license to monetize people’s information beyond purposes needed to provide their requested product or service,” it wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. Just because executives and investors want recurring revenue streams, that does not “outweigh the need for meaningful privacy safeguards,” the FTC wrote.
In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation published an extensive report examining the various automakers’ policies regarding the use of data from connected cars; the report concluded that “cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy.”
The FTC is not taking specific action against any automaker at this point. Instead, the blog post is meant to be a warning to the industry. It says that “connected cars have been on the FTC’s radar for years,” although the agency appears to have done very little other than hold workshops in 2013 and 2018, as well as publishing guidance for consumers reminding them to wipe the data from their cars before selling them.
The FTC says the easiest way to comply is to not collect the data in the first place.
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