When you buy a new car today, you are not simply purchasing a vehicle. You’re signing up for something more like a subscription monitoring service, except you don’t get a discount for participating and no one asks for your permission.
The comparison with smart TVs is not an exaggeration. Before Walmart completed its acquisition of the company, Vizio’s financial reports revealed that the most of its gross profit came from the sale of viewer data and advertising, not from the sale of physical televisions.
New vehicles now run on a similar model and most drivers have no idea what is happening. Like TVs, the hardware (i.e. your car) is one thing, but your driving habits may be the real product.
What your car collects
“Privacy nightmare on wheels”
Modern connected vehicles are packed with sensors, cameras, microphones, GPS systems and on-board computers. Many of these systems serve two purposes: they keep the vehicle in safe operating condition and serve the driver in their daily commutes, but they can also serve the manufacturer and its ultimate goals.
Your car can record where you go, when you leave, how hard you brake, how often you accelerate, and whether you drive day or night. Some systems go further. The cameras monitor facial expressions to detect drowsy or distracted driving, issuing a warning when you take your eyes off the road for too long. Always-on microphones capture audio inside the cabin. When you connect your smartphone, the vehicle can pull your contact list, call history and text messages, linking them back to your account with the manufacturer.
A report from the Mozilla Foundation, titled *Privacy not includedfound that none of the top 25 automakers it evaluated met basic standards for data transparency, user control or security. Researchers found that 84% of those brands share or sell driver data, and 92% give drivers little or no control over what is collected. The data your car generates doesn’t just sit on a server somewhere. It is packaged, sold and used in ways that most car buyers never anticipate.
“Many people think of their car as a private space: a place to call their doctor, have a personal conversation with their child on the way to school, cry their eyes out over a breakup, or drive to places you may not want the world to know about,” said Jen Caltrider, program director for *Privacy not included report. “But that perception no longer matches reality. All of today’s new cars are nightmares on wheels that collect enormous amounts of personal information.”
Where does your data go?
Many drivers simply don’t know it
GM previously used its OnStar Smart Driver feature to track driver behavior, including instances of hard braking, night driving and speeding, as frequently as every three seconds. That data was sold to consumer reporting agencies, which passed it on to insurance companies. Drivers found out only when their premiums increased or when they were denied coverage.
As one consumer stated in an FTC complaint after confronting a GM customer service representative: “When I signed up for this, it was so OnStar could track me. They didn’t say anything about reporting it to a third party. Nothing. (…) You guys are affecting our bottom line. I pay you, now you’re making me pay more to my insurance company.”
The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against GM and OnStar and finally finalized a liquidation order. GM now faces a five-year ban on sharing geolocation and driver behavior data with consumer reporting agencies, along with a 20-year consent order requiring explicit permission before collecting or sharing connected vehicle data. California followed with a separate $12.75 million civil penalty under its consumer privacy law, the largest ever imposed under the California Consumer Privacy Act.
However, to put it in context, GM would have made approximately $20 million from selling the data over a four-year period, meaning the fine still falls short of what it made from selling drivers’ information in the first place. Furthermore, the FTC settlement carries no financial penalties at the federal level, a stark reminder to some that federal consumer protections in this area still lack real teeth.
GM isn’t the only example either. Texas Attorney General sued Allstate and its subsidiary Arity for allegedly collecting and selling the driving data of more than 45 million people without consent.
Meanwhile, Connecticut Attorney General issued dozens of infringement notices in 2025 under the state’s data privacy law, with connected vehicles and location data listed as a specific enforcement focus. In addition, Oregon updated its privacy law in September 2025 to cover all automakers operating in the state, regardless of size, closing a loophole that had allowed smaller manufacturers to avoid compliance.
The exchange of value that is not
New vehicles are more expensive than ever
When you stream content on a smart TV and the manufacturer sells your viewing data, you can at least argue that the hardware was cheaper because of it. You may not like the arrangement, but there is a beneficial trade-off.
With cars, there is no such trade-off. He average transaction price of new vehicles Today it is at or near $50,000, the highest level ever reached in the auto industry. seems The days of ultra affordable cars. have passed, and even a six-figure salary may not leave enough margin when taking into account the total cost of ownership of the vehicle.
you can too pay a monthly subscription for connected services that in the end collect the data. And what’s more, the automaker profits by selling your data.
Unsubscribing isn’t exactly easy either. For example, Tesla warns in its privacy notice that disabling data collection “may cause your vehicle to suffer reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability.” In essence, the features that make a car worth buying are the same ones that draw its data.
what can you do
GM vehicle owners have some recourse
Options to protect your data are limited, but there are:
- Explore settings: Start with your vehicle’s privacy settings, which are usually hidden in the infotainment system or the manufacturer’s connected app. Look for data sharing options, telematics settings, and anything related to insurance or third-party services. Turn off what you can.
- Check the policy: Please read the privacy policy before activating any connected features. This is tedious, no doubt, but any disclosures about data sharing are hidden in the fine print.
- Return your data: If you own a GM vehicle and used OnStar Smart Driver, you can request a copy of your data or request that it be deleted through GM Consumer Privacy Portal. The FTC order requires GM to make that option available to all American consumers.
A concern for both privacy and security
The auto industry has operated with little oversight in data collection, although that is changing. The FTC has noted that data generated by vehicles is now treated as sensitive consumer information rather than a byproduct of innovation. State-level enforcement is accelerating, and several states are taking legal action.
But regulation advances more slowly than technology, and automakers still retain collected data sets that no consent order can retroactively access. Just as your television knows what you watch, your car knows where you live, where you work, when you leave and how you get there. That data, in the wrong hands, is not just a matter of privacy. It’s one of security.
