Your Car is a Smartphone on Wheels. Here's Who's Listening.

canopic jug writes:

Northeastern University and Consumer Reports have partnered to test 21 late model vehicles and 30 companion mobile apps to understand the privacy implications of the resulting connected vehicle ecosystem. In short, over 75% of vehicles sold globally follow who you are and where you have driven and more. They do this via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and mobile networking. The car companies then spread this collected information to many third parties.

Report Summary

Partnering with Consumer Reports, we tested 21 late model vehicles and 30 companion mobile apps to understand the privacy implications of the connected vehicle ecosystem.

01 We find that both vehicles and companion apps contact numerous third-party domains, including advertisers and trackers.02 19/21 vehicles tested send traffic to at least one third party03 Seven of 30 apps transmit sensitive identifiers to third-party companies

We go through a lengthy discolure process and provide insight into how manufacturer's perceive this data sharing issue.

Our findings underscore the need for continued measurement and scrutiny of the connected vehicle ecosystem.

The full paper, Automatic Transmission: An Empirical Study of Data Privacy in the Connected Vehicle Ecosystem will be presented at the Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '26), October 12-16, 2026, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Original Submission

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