Cars

Cars represent a major emerging threat for pervasive surveillance. Automakers are looking for additional revenue streams beyond the high upfront cost of a modern vehicle. The surveillance economy offers these companies an opportunity for ongoing post-sale revenue.

Seeking the Dollar

Historically, auto manufacturers have relied upon the initial sale of a vehicle and dealer-affiliated service departments as their primary revenue stream. In recent years, cars have become both more reliable and more expensive to produce as consumers demand vehicles that last a long time and have up to date safety features. As a consequence, automaker profit margins have declined.¹

Some automakers, including BMW and Toyota, are attempting to create ongoing sources of revenue by artificially changing some vehicle features – such as heated seats or remote start – into monthly subscription services. Consumers are, as expected, not amused by this attempt to ask for an ongoing payment for hardware built into the vehicle that they have already purchased at a high upfront cost. It is important to note that the automakers’ intention with subscriptions is to add to the overall cost of the vehicle, not to lower the upfront cost in exchange for ongoing revenue.¹ Apart from being an unpopular ploy for more money, this approach to revenue is also a bit fragile, since enthusiasts, independent shops, and aftermarket suppliers will undoubtedly find a way to enable the subscription features permanently at the hardware level, eliminating the need for monthly payments.

Another source of ongoing revenue for automakers is to join the surveillance economy and use the vehicle as both a source of consumer information and a platform for delivering advertisements. In 2024, Ford Motor Company patented a system for collecting data from onboard microphones to target ads within the vehicle. By listening to both driver voice commands and in-vehicle conversations, this system would be able to display visual ads on the infotainment system and play audio ads through the car’s speakers. Using audio processing technology, visual ads could be delivered to passengers at any time, while audio ads could fill the natural pauses in conversations between human vehicle occupants. The system could also make use of location data to serve ads related to nearby retail stores or other physical establishments.²

In-Vehicle Surveillance

Nearly all late model vehicles are participating the surveillance economy at some level. Companies are collecting demographic data about customers, listening to audio from onboard microphones, and measuring behavioral and psychological traits using some of the same techniques employed by the video game developers. These companies all have intentionally confusing and misleading privacy policies, which are designed to shield them from liability as they collect vast amounts of information and sell it to data brokers. Some companies, like Subaru, go as far as stating that a person is implicitly consenting to data collection by merely riding in the vehicle as a passenger. It is left to the owner of the vehicle to inform their passengers that the vehicle is collecting data, eliminating any chance of informed consent. Meanwhile, automakers’ information security controls are generally inadequate, and data breaches have already occurred.³

The type and quantity of data to which automakers are trying to entitle themselves is astounding. Nissan and Kia, for example, have both given themselves the right to collect information about occupants’ “sexual activity” and “sex lives” as part of their surveillance program.⁴ Automakers including General Motors collect vehicle driving data from their customers and share it with insurance companies. All modern cars collect some level of diagnostic data and a record of recent driving events, which are available to both the automaker and to law enforcement. Opting out of this data collection is an intentionally convoluted process, and not all data collection can be completely disabled.⁵

Mitigation

Until we have meaningful privacy laws and regulations to rein in automakers’ behavior, consumers will have far too little control over in-vehicle data collection. It is possible to turn off some of this surveillance, although the process for doing so varies from vehicle to vehicle.⁵ Consumers can also choose not to install the smartphone apps pushed by car manufacturers, although they may lose access to some vehicle features by doing so. Purchasing an older model used car might be a wiser option for the time being.³

That said, if you desire a newer model of vehicle, take the time to understand what kinds of data the vehicle will be collecting. Try to find ways to disable as much of this data collection as possible, but understand that it might be necessary to disable some vehicle features in the process. For example, you can elect not to subscribe to telematics services or service for the in-vehicle WiFi hotspot, both of which are really designed to transmit surveillance data back to the company while being marketed as a “feature” for which you (the object of the surveillance) are expected to pay a monthly cost. Instead of using the car’s built-in hotspot, just use the hotspot on your phone if your passengers require Internet access on a trip. Also, be careful not to let the vehicle use your phone’s hotspot or Bluetooth tethering, nor should it be allowed to connect to your home WiFi. Its systems should never be given Internet access, since this access will be used to transmit your personal information back to the automaker.

If average consumers ever become wise to the automakers’ data collection efforts, the car companies will simply get a bit sneakier. Instead of tying data transmission to a customer-paid subscription, the vehicle will simply gain a dedicated cellular modem for data gathering and ad delivery. Hardware modifications, such as disconnecting power to the device or disabling its antenna, may be required to stop these communications. In-vehicle microphones could also be physically disconnected, although this will also result in the loss of built-in hands-free communications. Privacy regulations to prevent all this surveillance in the first place would be ideal, but surveillance economy participants (including the automakers) have powerful lobbies against such regulation.

Notes and References

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