Remember when a car was just a car? You turned the key, adjusted the radio, rolled down the windows, and hit the road. For many on the road today, those days are over.
Newer vehicles are rolling data centers, and they’re collecting more information about you than your phone, your smart TV, and your fitness tracker combined. Every trip to the grocery store, every hard brake, every mph over the speed limit, it’s all being recorded, and sold.
The Data Goldmine in Your Driveway
Today’s connected cars don’t just track where you’re going. They monitor how fast you accelerate, how hard you brake, whether you’re wearing your seatbelt, what music you play, who you call, and even what your face looks like while you drive.
A comprehensive privacy review (by Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit behind Firefox browser) found that your car creates data about “how fast you drive, what songs you listen to, what your face looks like, and everywhere your car goes.”
But it doesn’t stop there. Car companies also collect information through your phone’s connected app, public sources, and other companies. They use all that information to make “inferences” about your characteristics, including your predispositions and intelligence.
In 2024, an investigation revealed that General Motors had been collecting detailed driving data from millions of vehicles and selling it to insurance companies without drivers’ explicit consent. LexisNexis, a data broker, was purchasing this information and creating “driver scores” that insurers used to raise rates.
Drivers who thought they had clean records suddenly saw their premiums spike. Why? Because their cars had reported hard braking events, late-night driving, or rapid acceleration, all behaviors their insurance companies now knew about.
Where Your Data Actually Goes
Privacy researchers examining major car brands discovered your data can be sold or shared with service providers, other third parties, government and law enforcement, advertising and research companies, other drivers, dealers, social media platforms, data brokers, connected services like SiriusXM and OnStar, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Amazon Alexa.
Why Your Data Is Worth It
Insurance companies pay for your data to assess risk and set rates. Advertisers want to know your routines. Law enforcement can use it in criminal investigations. Divorce lawyers can subpoena it in custody battles.
Some automakers have subscription models for features like heated seats, remote start, and advanced safety features, all enabled by the data your car collects about how you use it.
What You Can Actually Do
You can’t completely escape vehicle tracking in 2026, but you can limit your exposure.
Disable what you can: Dig into your vehicle’s settings for data-sharing options. Many connected features can be turned off. You might lose some convenience, but you’ll regain privacy.
Be cautious with connections: Before syncing your phone, understand exactly what permissions you’re granting. Consider using Bluetooth only for calls and music, skipping the full integration that gives access to your contacts, messages and location history.
Limit app usage: Those convenient car apps on your phone? They’re collecting additional data beyond what the vehicle itself captures. Use them sparingly or not at all.
The Road Ahead
Your car knows where you’ve been, predicts your intelligence and shares that information with dozens of third parties you’ve never heard of.
The question isn’t whether it’s tracking you, it’s whether you’re okay with that data being packaged, analyzed, and sold to service providers, advertisers, data brokers, insurance companies, and anyone else willing to pay for it.
As it’s often said: if a service is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. Turns out, even when you spend $40,000 on a new car, the same rule applies.
Your data is digital gold. Your car is mining it. And someone else is cashing in.
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Photo, top, courtesy of Jesse Zheng / Pexels
