Autos are data-collection hubs due to their many sensors, from telematics to fully digital control consoles.

However, drivers have little control over the personal data their vehicles collect, Mozilla Foundation researchers said Wednesday in their latest “Privacy Not Included” survey. Security standards are also vague, which is concerning given automakers’ hacking history.

“Cars seem to have really flown under the privacy radar and I’m really hoping that we can help remedy that because they are truly awful,” said study research lead Jen Caltrider. “Cars have microphones and people have sensitive conversations. Car cameras face inward and outward.”

Caltrider said automobile purchasers “just don’t have a lot of options” without a used, pre-digital model.

Since 2017, Mozilla has analyzed more than a dozen product categories, including fitness trackers, reproductive health applications, smart speakers, and other connected home products, and cars ranked worst for privacy.

None of the 25 automobile brands whose privacy notices were reviewed—chosen for their popularity in Europe and North America—met Mozilla’s baseline privacy criteria. Mozilla promotes open-source, public-interest technology and maintains the Firefox browser. However, 37% of mental health apps the non-profit tested this year did.

Notices from 19 automakers suggest they can sell your personal info. Half will share your information with the government or law enforcement upon “request” rather than legal order. Only Renault and Dacia, which are not offered in North America, allow drivers to remove their data.

“Increasingly, most cars are wiretaps on wheels,” said Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy technology and human rights fellow Albert Fox Cahn. Drivers pay extra to install devices that collect more data on them and their passengers.”

Since 2017, Mozilla has analyzed more than a dozen product categories, including fitness trackers, reproductive health applications, smart speakers, and other connected home products, and cars ranked worst for privacy.

None of the 25 automobile brands whose privacy notices were reviewed—chosen for their popularity in Europe and North America—met Mozilla’s baseline privacy criteria. Mozilla promotes open-source, public-interest technology and maintains the Firefox browser. However, 37% of mental health apps the non-profit tested this year did.

Notices from 19 automakers suggest they can sell your personal info. Half will share your information with the government or law enforcement upon “request” rather than legal order. Only Renault and Dacia, which are not offered in North America, allow drivers to remove their data.

“Increasingly, most cars are wiretaps on wheels,” said Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy technology and human rights fellow Albert Fox Cahn. Drivers pay extra to install devices that collect more data on them and their passengers.”

In a 2020 Pew Research survey, 52% of Americans indicated they avoided a product or service because they were apprehensive about its data collection.

Minimum Mozilla security standards include encrypting car personal data. The researchers stated most vehicle brands disregarded their emails and provided partial, unsatisfactory responses.

Japan-based Nissan shocked researchers with its privacy notice’s honesty and thorough data collecting breakdowns, unlike Facebook or Google. Driver’s license numbers, immigrant status, race, sexual orientation, and health diagnoses are considered “sensitive personal information.”

Nissan can also use data “inferences” to construct profiles “reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.”

Six car firms claimed to collect “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics,” researchers found.

Nissan claims it obtained “sexual activity” data.” How wasn’t explained?

Mozilla’s “creepiness” ranking favored Tesla’s electric cars. Tesla’s privacy notice states that it may not be able to warn drivers “in real time” of concerns that could cause “reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability” if they opt out of data gathering.

Nissan and Tesla did not answer practice queries quickly

Mozilla’s Caltrider said the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and California’s Consumer Privacy Act forced carmakers to disclose data collecting.

She said it’s a start by boosting customer awareness, like in the 2010s when a backlash forced TV makers to provide more alternatives to surveillance-heavy connected displays.

The settlement puts an end to charges that a Verizon service that provides federal agencies with secure internet connections and other external networks did not fully satisfy three mandated cybersecurity measures in contracts spanning the years 2017 to 2021. The allegations were resolved as part of the settlement.

“When government contractors fail to follow required cybersecurity standards, they may jeopardize the security of sensitive government information and information systems,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Granston in a statement.

According to a statement made by Verizon in 2020, the company “proactively identified and disclosed” to the General Services Administration a potential problem involving a managed security solution that Verizon sells to several departments within the federal government. It was also said that there was never a moment when the possible problem led to a compromise of data or security.

Due to the terms of the settlement, no determination of responsibility was made.

The Department of Homeland Security awarded kudos to Verizon and other companies in settlements with federal contractors who “disclose misconduct, cooperate with pending investigations, and take remedial measures, all of which are critically important to protecting the nation against cyber threats.”

Musk said on X, previously Twitter, that US advertising revenue is “still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!”

Musk also stated that since taking over the site in October 2022, the ADL “has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.”

“It appears that we will have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League to clear our platform’s name on the issue of anti-Semitism… oh the irony!” he remarked.

The ADL stated that it does not comment on legal threats as a matter of policy. The organization did, however, state that it recently met with X leadership, including CEO Linda Yaccarino, whom Musk hired to help resuscitate ad income. Following the meeting last week, Yaccarino congratulated ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, writing on X, “A strong and productive partnership is built on good intentions and candor.”

Meanwhile, the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, has recently liked and commented on a number of postings condemning the group.

The ADL accused Musk of “lifting” a #BanTheADL campaign that had flourished on X.

“Antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization,” the ADL said. “This is not a new occurrence,” an ADL official said.

The ADL and other similar organizations, such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate, have discovered that under Musk’s leadership, the level of hate speech on the website has increased considerably.

In one case, the CCDH discovered that under Musk, daily use of the n-word is quadruple the 2022 average, and slurs against homosexual men and trans people are up 58% and 62%, respectively. In a second analysis, the ADL stated that its data reveals “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.”

Musk called the two watchdog groups’ reports in May “utterly false,” claiming that “hate speech impressions,” or the number of times a tweet containing hate speech has been viewed, “continue to decline” since his early days as a company owner, when the platform saw a spike in hate speech designed to test Musk’s tolerance.

Nonetheless, two firms suspended their ad expenditure on X last month after their adverts aired alongside an account supporting Nazism. After the issue was reported, X suspended the account and stated that ad impressions on the page were modest.

Musk sued the CCDH last month, accusing the organization of attempting to drive advertisers away from the platform by publishing studies critical of the network’s response to hateful speech.

It alleges that CCDH violated the platform’s terms of service and federal hacking statutes by scraping data from the company’s platform and encouraged an unnamed individual to inappropriately gather Twitter information that it had sent to a third-party brand monitoring supplier.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed previously told CNN that much of the complaint, including the claim about the anonymous individual, “sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me.”

“The truth is that he’s [Elon Musk] been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO,” Ahmed said, “because we all know that when he took over, he put up the bat signal to racists and misogynists, homophobes and antisemites, saying ‘Twitter is now a free-speech platform.’ And now he’s startled that people can measure the increase in hate and disinformation that has resulted.”