Careful with that exhaust, Eugene… Car companies are collecting data on your sex life, and apparently you’re fine with that.
It seems modern cars are gobbling up all kinds of data about their drivers including – astonishingly – details of their sex lives.
Take a close look at Nissan’s privacy policy for instance.
Nissan warns that it is prepared to collect your health, genetic, and other sensitive personal information in order to target you with marketing. Oh, and yes… your “sexual activity”.
Sensitive personal information, including driver’s license number, national or state identification number, citizenship status, immigration status, race, national origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, sexual activity, precise geolocation, health diagnosis data, and genetic information.
It reserves the rights to disclose and share this information, of course, with all manner of other third parties.
And it’s not just Nissan.
Here’s part of Kia’s privacy policy – which is interested in your politics and “sex life.”
7.3.1 Information about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, sex life and political opinions;
I am kind of reminded of when Uber bragged it was able to track which of its customers had been on one-night stands (or “Rides of Glory” as Uber called them).
The fact that we continue to buy cars from Nissan, Kia, and other companies with similarly nosey privacy policies suggest many of us have no problem with this at all. It’s that or we simply don’t bother to read privacy policies.
Mozilla’s great Privacy Not Included project has done a great job of uncovering just how much of a privacy nightmare modern cars are.
Having read Mozilla’s report, it’s no wonder it describe cars as the worst product category it has ever reviewed for privacy.
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