Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind issues urgent warning to Aussies with ‘connected’ car as inquiry is launched

Growing fears over the amounts of data and private information being collected by new ‘connected’ cars have prompted the Privacy Commissioner to launch an investigation.

Carly Kind, a former Queensland human rights lawyer who took on the role of government agency in February, warned there was little transparency about what drivers’ personal data was used for.

She is now on a mission to ensure connected vehicles sold in Australia protect sensitive personal data.

“Cars are now like computers on wheels, and that means they collect a lot of information about individuals, especially location information, which tells us a lot of other things about individuals, including … about their sensitive personal lives,” Ms Kind told the Australian Financial Statement.

“There’s a lot of data being collected there, and there’s not a lot of transparency or understanding about how that data is being used.”

Ms Kind said the sale of this data in the US by car manufacturers to car insurers ‘flowed back to consumers in the form of potentially higher insurance premiums’ (photo: a Tesla at a charging station)

The Privacy Commissioner’s intervention comes after Barefoot Investor Scott Pape warned in March that new “internet-enabled cars” in the US often share data about a driver’s speeding, braking and evasive action with insurance companies.

Ms Kind said sales of this data in the US by car manufacturers to car insurers “flowed back to consumers in the form of potentially higher insurance premiums”.

In October, Katherine Kemp, associate professor at UNSW’s Faculty of Law & Justice, warned that “Australian privacy laws need urgent reform” to combat the data collected by car companies.

“Australia’s privacy laws are not up to the task of protecting the vast amount of personal information collected and shared by car companies,” Ms Kemp wrote.

“And because our privacy laws don’t require the specific disclosures that some U.S. states require, we have much less information about what car companies do with our data.”

Ms Kemp cited a US study by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation that found cars with internet-connected features were “the official worst category of products for privacy” they had ever rated, calling them a “privacy nightmare on wheels”.

They tested all the major car brands – Toyota, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Tesla, Hyundai – and found that they all failed to meet minimum privacy standards.

Nearly 85 percent share or sell your data to third parties, while Nissan and Kia reportedly even allow the collection of data about a driver’s sex life.

“They come right out and say they can collect and share your sexual activity, health diagnosis data, genetic information, and other sensitive personal information for targeted marketing purposes,” the Mozilla Foundation report said states.

A US study by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation found that cars with internet-connected features were ‘the official worst category of products for privacy’ they had ever rated, calling them a ‘privacy nightmare on wheels’

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looks at an electric car charging station in a test room during a visit to Tritium, Brisbane, in March last year

Privacy Commissioner Ms Kind added that there are also concerns about the images electric cars can collect.

“I think there is a related and separate issue around certain types of vehicles, including electric vehicles, which collect a range of other types of information, including video footage around the car and other types of surveillance footage,” Ms Kind told the publication. .

“So I’m really trying to explore what the privacy obligations and issues are in that area.”

Ms Kind founded the London-based data and privacy research organization the Ada lovelace Institute in 2019 before taking up her government-appointed role.

The role, which reports to the attorney general and covers regulating data and privacy issues, includes a total salary of $365,570.