Data collected by cars and sold to third parties
Data collected by cars and sold to third parties
汽车收集并向第三方出售数据
Your car is selling your data 你的汽车正在出卖你的数据
The amount of data about you that many cars collect — and sell to third parties — is staggering. 许多汽车收集并向第三方出售的关于你的数据量令人震惊。
How it started
事情的起因
Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission issued an unprecedented penalty against General Motors: a five-year ban on selling customer data to consumer reporting agencies and third-party data brokers. 今年早些时候，美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）对通用汽车（General Motors）开出了史无前例的罚单：禁止其在五年内向消费者征信机构和第三方数据经纪商出售客户数据。
For years, GM had been collecting all sorts of data on its customers — such as how often they sped or whether they drove at night — and selling it to brokers to generate risk profiles for insurance companies. More often than not, drivers were unaware of the degree to which their data was being collected. Many had unknowingly consented to it by signing up for an OnStar connected services plan, which activated a feature called Smart Driver that collected their driving data. 多年来，通用汽车一直在收集客户的各类数据——例如超车频率或是否在夜间驾驶——并将其出售给经纪商，以便为保险公司生成风险评估档案。大多数情况下，驾驶员并不清楚自己的数据被收集到了何种程度。许多人在注册 OnStar 互联服务计划时，在不知情的情况下表示了同意，该计划激活了一项名为“智能驾驶”（Smart Driver）的功能，从而收集了他们的驾驶数据。
GM was then turning around and sharing that data with two data brokers, LexisNexis and Verisk, both of which work with the insurance industry. In a 2024 blockbuster investigative report by The New York Times, some drivers said their insurance rates went up as a result of the data collection. The enrollment process was so confusing that many vehicle owners had no idea their data was being shared. Under the settlement with the FTC, GM has to make it easier for drivers to turn off location tracking, as well as enable them to access and delete their data collected by the automaker. 随后，通用汽车将这些数据分享给了两家数据经纪商——LexisNexis 和 Verisk，这两家公司均与保险业有合作。在《纽约时报》2024 年的一篇重磅调查报道中，一些驾驶员表示，由于这些数据收集行为，他们的保险费率上涨了。注册过程极其令人困惑，以至于许多车主根本不知道自己的数据正在被共享。根据与 FTC 达成的和解协议，通用汽车必须让驾驶员更轻松地关闭位置跟踪功能，并允许他们访问和删除汽车制造商所收集的个人数据。
But GM isn’t the only automaker vacuuming up data on its customers. A team of researchers from the Mozilla Foundation spent months examining the privacy policies of all the major car companies for a report they were working on in 2023. Their conclusion: Every single one had “horrible privacy and security,” said Jen Caltrider, who helped author the study. Not only that, but customers were forced to accept overlapping policies for the car, the connected services, the smartphone app, and the financial services through which they received their loan — all of which included data collection provisions. 但通用汽车并非唯一一家大肆搜集客户数据的车企。Mozilla 基金会的一组研究人员在 2023 年花费数月时间，审查了所有主要汽车公司的隐私政策，并撰写了一份报告。该研究的合著者 Jen Caltrider 表示，他们的结论是：每一家车企的“隐私和安全状况都糟糕透顶”。不仅如此，客户还被迫接受针对汽车、互联服务、智能手机应用程序以及贷款金融服务的多重重叠政策——所有这些政策都包含了数据收集条款。
“And so it was really overwhelming trying to understand what was going on,” Caltrider said. “因此，想要弄清楚到底发生了什么，真的让人感到不知所措，”Caltrider 说道。
There has been plenty of corroborating evidence for this. Consumer Reports published its own investigation last year that concluded “nearly every automaker that sells cars in the U.S. is similarly collecting and sharing so-called ‘driver behavior data’ with other companies and continues to do so.” 对此已有大量佐证。《消费者报告》（Consumer Reports）去年发布的一项调查结论显示，“几乎每一家在美国销售汽车的制造商都在以类似的方式收集并与其它公司共享所谓的‘驾驶行为数据’，且目前仍在继续。”
Cars are particularly problematic compared to phones because the privacy controls are less intuitive. A smartphone owner can generally find and tweak their privacy settings. With a vehicle, the data collection is spread across multiple systems and policies, making it much harder for consumers to understand what is happening. It feels like a free-for-all because automakers are collecting enormous amounts of information without much public scrutiny. 与手机相比，汽车的问题尤为突出，因为其隐私控制不够直观。智能手机用户通常可以找到并调整隐私设置。而在汽车上，数据收集分散在多个系统和政策中，这使得消费者很难理解到底发生了什么。由于汽车制造商在缺乏公众监督的情况下收集海量信息，这感觉就像是一场不受约束的“混战”。
How it’s going
现状如何
After GM was penalized as a result of the Times investigation, the issue of data privacy and cars appears to finally be getting some scrutiny. But as is often the case, policymakers may be missing the mark on how to address it. 在通用汽车因《纽约时报》的调查而受到处罚后，汽车数据隐私问题似乎终于受到了一些关注。但通常情况下，决策者在如何解决这一问题上可能并未切中要害。
Last December, a trio of House Republicans introduced the Data Rights for Information and Vehicle Electronics in Real-time, or DRIVER, Act. According to these lawmakers, the bill “reaffirms a basic principle: if you own the vehicle, you should own the data it generates.” 去年 12 月，三名共和党众议员提出了《实时信息与车辆电子数据权利法案》（简称 DRIVER 法案）。据这些议员称，该法案“重申了一个基本原则：如果你拥有这辆车，你就应该拥有它所产生的数据。”
But while the bill would give vehicle owners a bit more control over their data, it would also allow automakers to continue gathering and selling it to third-party data brokers, which makes it a nonstarter for privacy advocates. As Caltrider notes, access and deletion rights are not the same thing as preventing excess collection in the first place. If an automaker can collect enormous amounts of information and the consumer must then go through an arduous process to discover what was collected and request that it be deleted, the burden remains on the individual. Most privacy advocates would rather see a system in which automakers simply do not collect so much information to begin with. 然而，尽管该法案赋予了车主对数据更多的控制权，但它同时也允许汽车制造商继续收集数据并将其出售给第三方数据经纪商，这使得隐私倡导者无法接受。正如 Caltrider 所指出的，访问权和删除权并不等同于从源头上防止过度收集。如果汽车制造商可以收集海量信息，而消费者必须经历繁琐的过程才能发现被收集了什么并要求删除，那么负担依然落在个人身上。大多数隐私倡导者更希望看到一种从一开始就限制车企收集过多信息的机制。
The issue has even risen to the level of MAGA World. Last July, Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, sent a letter to Congress outlining the administration’s policy priorities for the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization bill. Tucked in the letter was a new concept called “the Freedom Car,” which Duffy described as Americans’ right to “drive disconnected and non-automated” vehicles. The proposal would ban the government from requiring that vehicles be equipped with automated driving systems or have the capability to transmit data wirelessly — which, to my knowledge, no one is trying to do. 这个问题甚至上升到了“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）阵营的层面。去年 7 月，唐纳德·特朗普提名的交通部长肖恩·达菲（Sean Duffy）致信国会，概述了政府对即将到来的地面交通重新授权法案的政策重点。信中包含了一个名为“自由之车”（Freedom Car）的新概念，达菲将其描述为美国人有权“驾驶未联网且非自动化的”车辆。该提案将禁止政府要求车辆配备自动驾驶系统或具备无线传输数据的能力——据我所知，目前并没有人试图这样做。
What happens next
未来走向
It’s unclear whether the DRIVER Act or the Freedom Car will ever clear the hurdles in Washington to become real policies. What is clear is that there is significant demand for simpler vehicles. People are asking why they can’t just buy a car without all the sensors and data collection. They look at new concepts like the Slate Truck and wonder whether they could also use something more bare-bones. 目前尚不清楚 DRIVER 法案或“自由之车”概念能否在华盛顿扫清障碍成为真正的政策。但显而易见的是，市场对更简单的车辆有着巨大的需求。人们在问，为什么他们不能只买一辆没有那么多传感器和数据收集功能的汽车。他们关注像 Slate Truck 这样的新概念车，并想知道自己是否也能使用更基础的车型。
Sure, consumers may accept useful safety equipment such as backup cameras, but many don’t want their vehicle tracking everything they do — and they definitely don’t want to see ads on their vehicle screens. (BMW, I’m looking at you.) Nor do they want Flock cameras tracking their every movement while they drive down the street. 当然，消费者或许能接受倒车影像等实用的安全设备，但许多人并不希望自己的车辆追踪他们的一举一动——他们绝对不想在车内屏幕上看到广告。（宝马，我说的就是你。）他们也不希望在开车上街时，被 Flock 摄像头追踪每一个行踪。
But automakers have every incentive to keep collecting data because there is money to be made from it. As long as the broader data economy rewards companies for gathering and monetizing information, there’s little reason for… 但汽车制造商有充分的动力继续收集数据，因为这有利可图。只要更广泛的数据经济体系仍在奖励那些收集并利用信息变现的公司，那么……（文章此处截断）