It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy

> All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label -- making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.

So it's "worse than smartphones" in the sense that for smartphones, at least there are options that are privacy-friendly.

Around 1 in 4500 cars newly registered each year in the US are homebuilt or kit cars (which are obviously privacy-preserving).

I tried to find the equivalent market share for privacy-friendly smartphones (and am undoubtedly not up on the latest trends there) to see if it was more or less than 0.02% of the market.

It looks like fairphone sells around 120K devices per year globally (out of around 1.4B total smartphone units). I realize that's not the only brand in the space.

"The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you -- from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car -- in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through “inferences” about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests."

Told you... your sex life is corporation-collected data.

A few interesting notes:

> Tesla is only the second product we have ever reviewed to receive all of our privacy “dings.” (The first was an AI chatbot we reviewed earlier this year.)

“if you no longer wish for us to collect vehicle data or any other data from your Tesla vehicle, please contact us to deactivate connectivity. Please note, certain advanced features such as over-the-air updates, remote services, and interactivity with mobile applications and in-car features such as location search, Internet radio, voice commands, and web browser functionality rely on such connectivity. If you choose to opt out of vehicle data collection (with the exception of in-car Data Sharing preferences), we will not be able to know or notify you of issues applicable to your vehicle in real time. This may result in your vehicle suffering from reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability.

> Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.”

> Hyundai ... says they will comply with “lawful requests, whether formal or informal.” [from government]