Elon Musk's Tesla Inc. TSLA and most other modern cars are a big "privacy nightmare", according to the Mozilla Foundation. Worse yet, the privacy policies of these modern cars are comparable to those of sex toys, the foundation said.
What Happened: After analyzing the privacy policies of Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Lexus, Toyota, and several others, the Mozilla Foundation concluded that cars are the "worst product category" that they have ever reviewed for privacy.
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"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," the Mozilla Foundation said.
All the brands that the foundation reviewed were said to be collecting "too much" personal data. In many cases, the data collected is used for things other than operating the vehicle, which points to brands collecting this data to profit from it.
"While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines," it added.
Tesla's privacy policy was the worst among the 25 car makers that Mozilla looked into. "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.) What set them apart was earning the "untrustworthy AI" ding," the foundation noted.
Nissan Wins The ‘Creepiest' Award: Japanese car maker Nissan earned the second-to-last spot in terms of privacy, but the foundation observed that the company was collecting data in "some of the creepiest categories we have ever seen".
What's the creepy part? Nissan's privacy policy mentions "sexual activity". Its rival Kia also mentions that it collects information about your "sex life".
Next time you get into a Nissan or Kia car, you might want to keep this in mind.
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