Your Car and Its App Are Quietly Feeding Big Tech, Study Finds

The connected car is turning out to be a very talkative passenger. Researchers at Northeastern University have found that vehicles and the mobile apps that go with them regularly pass detailed data to some of the largest technology companies in the world.

The work looked at how cars and their companion apps behave in practice, rather than what the privacy policies say. The picture that emerged is one of constant background chatter. Apps that drivers install to lock doors, check fuel levels or start the engine from the couch are also sending information out to third parties, many of them familiar names in advertising, analytics and cloud services.

That matters because a car is not like other connected gadgets. It knows where you live, where you work, when you leave and how fast you drive. Combined with the identifiers that phones and apps already carry, even routine telemetry can add up to a revealing profile of someone's daily life.

Much of the sharing is likely to be technical plumbing. Carmakers lean heavily on outside providers for maps, crash reporting, app analytics and cloud hosting, and every one of those integrations is another pipe through which data can flow. The trouble is that drivers rarely see any of it. There is usually no obvious switch to turn it off, and the terms they agree to at the dealership or during app setup tend to be long and vague.

The research adds to growing scrutiny of how the auto industry handles personal information. Regulators and lawmakers in the United States and elsewhere have already been asking whether manufacturers collect more than they need and whether owners truly consent to the way that information is used or sold on.

For ordinary drivers, the practical advice is modest but useful. Review the permissions a car's app requests on your phone, decline location access when it is not essential, and look through the privacy settings in the vehicle's infotainment system. Opting out of optional data collection will not stop everything, but it can reduce what leaves the car.

The bigger fix has to come from manufacturers and regulators. Clearer disclosure of which companies receive data, and why, would let buyers make informed choices before they sign. Until then, the safest assumption is that a modern car and its app are telling someone more than you would expect.