Your car is tracking you. So can a predator...

By Kashmir Hill

NEW YORK: A car, to its driver, can feel like a sanctuary. A place to sing favorite songs off key, to cry, to vent or to drive somewhere no one knows you’re going. But in truth, there are few places in our lives less private. Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels” because they are internet-connected and have myriad methods of data collection, from cameras and seat weight sensors to records of how hard you brake and corner. Most drivers don’t realise how much information their cars are collecting and who has access to it, said Jen Caltrider, a privacy researcher at Mozilla who reviewed the privacy policies of more than 25 car brands and found surprising disclosures, such as Nissan saying it might collect information about “sexual activity.”

“People think their car is private,” Caltrider said. “With a computer, you know where the camera is and you can put tape over it. Once you’ve bought a car and you find it is bad at privacy, what are you supposed to do?” Privacy advocates are concerned by how car companies are using and sharing consumers’ data — with insurance companies, for example — and drivers’ inability to turn the data collection off. California’s privacy regulator is investigating the auto industry.

For car owners, the upside of this data-palooza has come in the form of smartphone apps that allow them to check a car’s location when, say, they forget where it is parked; to lock and unlock the vehicle remotely; and to turn it on or off. Some apps can even remotely set the car’s climate controls, make the horn honk or turn on its lights. After setting up the app, the car’s owner can grant access to a limited number of other drivers.

Domestic violence experts say that these convenience features are being weaponised in abusive relationships, and that car makers have not been willing to assist victims. This is particularly complicated when the victim is a co-owner of the car, or not named on the title.

Detective Kelly Downey of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, had dealt with a case of harassment via a connected car app — a woman whose husband would turn on her Lexus while it sat in the garage in the middle of the night. In that case, too, Detective Downey was unable to get the car company to turn off the husband’s access; the victim sold her car. “Automobile manufacturers have to create a way for us to stop it,” Detective Downey said. “Technology may be our godsend, but it’s also very scary because it could hurt you.” Eva Galperin, an expert on tech-enabled domestic abuse at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that she has seen another case of an abuser using a car app to track a victim’s movements, and that the victim didn’t realise it because she “isn’t the one who has set it up.”

“As far as I know, there are not any guides for how to lock your partner out of your car after you break up,” Galperin said. Controlling partners have tracked their victims’ cars in the past using GPS devices and Apple AirTags, Galperin said, but connected car apps offer new opportunities for harassment.

A San Francisco man used his remote access to the Tesla Model X sport utility vehicle he co-owned with his wife to harass her after they separated, according to a lawsuit she filed anonymously in San Francisco Superior Court in 2020.