Revealed: The big car companies collecting your data
Toyota, Hyundai, Tesla, and Kia among some of the largest auto-makers collecting and sharing your personal dataThese days, just about every electronic device is tracking you; Google collects your search data, your smartphone is listening to you, and modern-day cars are tracking (and in some cases sharing information about) your every move.
Some experts say reforms to the Privacy Act are needed to better protect drivers, labelling the activity of recording and sharing personal information 'illegal'.
It comes as new research into just how much of your driving data and behaviour is being collected by some of the world's most trusted car brands.
The results of the research produced surprising results this week, with almost all the top-selling car brands in Australia admitting to sharing data with third-party companies.
According to an investigation by Choice that investigated the top 10 selling brands in Australia, the worst offenders include Kia and Hyundai, both of which collect and share voice recognition and other data with third parties, while Tesla collects both voice and video, sharing 'some' data with third parties.
Both Kia and Hyundai say data collected is shared with US-based company, Cerence, which it says is a global industry leader in AI-powered interactions across transportation.
While voice recognition might not sound as harmful as video recognition, Choice says just like facial recognition, voice recognition is considered “sensitive” biometric information as it’s uniquely identifiable to individual people.
Under privacy law, “sensitive data” should have an enhanced level of consumer protection and consent before it can be gathered and shared, says Choice.
US EV-maker Tesla reportedly gathers voice command data along with “short video clips and images” using onboard camera systems fitted to the car, and says it shares some of that data with third parties.
But Tesla says its privacy policy assures drivers that the data is subject to “privacy preserving techniques” that are “not linked to your identity or account”.
Toyota, the country’s top-selling car-maker, says it collects vehicle location data including “Drive Pulse” data, which scores a driver’s acceleration, braking and cornering behaviour during each trip, all of which is then shared with “related companies” and third-party service providers engaged by the Japanese auto-maker.
Ford also collects and shares driver (but not biometric) data, while Chinese car-maker MG said it collects and shares data with a range of “service providers” but doesn’t share with third parties “other than to provide functionality”.
Choice said MG refused to respond to repeated requests for clarification on its “vague” clause.
Similarly, Mazda admitted to collecting and sharing data (including “voice consumption” data) but Choice said the manufacturer wouldn’t clarify what that encompasses.
Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Isuzu Ute are all off the hook. Choice says none of the trio collects nor shares driver data in Australia.
Nevertheless, the harrowing revelations have prompted calls for updated privacy laws.
More scrutiny needed for automotive data collection say experts
Dr Vanessa Teague from the Australian National University’s College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics, labelled the act ‘totally unacceptable’, saying the practices “should be illegal”.
“Drivers are often opted-in [to connected features] automatically when buying the car or downloading the car’s app,” said Teague.
“Opt-out is not the answer; you should have to opt-in to some of these features if you want them. Many of these other features should simply be illegal.”
Teague says customers may be able to “deactivate” their connected features, but this can also mean disabling other vehicle functions such as maps, weather, and emergency SOS features which can call emergency services if the vehicle is involved in an accident.
In Toyota’s case, customers may void part of their warranty by totally removing the data communications module.
Ibrahim Khalil, professor of cloud systems at RMIT University says it is concerning that raw data from Aussie drivers is being transferred to car companies overseas and to the AI machine-learning companies they’re partnered with.
“You can use AI systems within the car to build the learning model off the driving data, and then transfer the model,” said Khalil.
"You don't need to transfer the raw data. If you transfer the raw data, then of course, you expose everything. Europeans wouldn't accept this, [but] here in Australia we don't make a fuss, we don't talk about it, we don't complain about anything when it comes to privacy.”
Related: What data is my car collecting?
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