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Is your car listening to you? It may capture voice commands when a connected voice assistant is actively listening, but that is different from continuously recording conversations. A car can also send location, driving, diagnostic, camera or app-use data without recording speech. What applies depends on the vehicle, model year, equipment, software, connected services, country and settings.
What “listening” means in a connected car
There are two distinct kinds of data that can sound like “listening.” A voice-recognition system may capture a command while it is in an active-listen state. Separately, media analytics can describe what audio content is played, such as a station, track, artist, genre, volume or selected source. Media analytics do not, by themselves, mean the car is recording a conversation.
Ford’s U.S. Connected Vehicle Privacy notice, effective July 1, 2026, describes both voice commands captured while connected voice recognition is in “active listen” state and media-use information. It also describes vehicle, driving, location and camera data. Ford says collection depends on vehicle connectivity, software, settings and services; this is Ford’s U.S. notice, not a description of every car or country. Read Ford’s Connected Vehicle Privacy notice.
Connected-car information can be sensitive even when no speech is captured. The FTC notes that connected vehicles may collect biometric, telematic, geolocation and video information, and that location histories can reveal visits to sensitive places. That does not establish that a particular car collected any specific sensitive information. FTC: Connected cars are a big data privacy nightmare.
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What information might leave the vehicle?
Ford’s U.S. notice illustrates the breadth of data a connected vehicle may generate. The categories below describe that notice, not a universal industry inventory.
| Data category | Examples described by Ford |
|---|---|
| Vehicle and service information | Identifiers, diagnostics, maintenance information and feature-use analytics. |
| Driving information | Speed, accelerator and braking activity, steering, driver-assistance use and seat-belt information. |
| Location | Precise vehicle location. |
| Voice and camera | Camera images and voice commands captured while connected voice recognition is in its active-listen state. |
| Media use | Radio presets, volume, channels, source, title, artist and genre. |
Ford says information transmitted from a vehicle is generally associated with the VIN or another identifier that can be linked to the owner, though it may also be transmitted in de-identified form. “De-identified” should not be read as “nothing was collected”; it describes how information is handled or associated, not whether collection occurred.
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Who can receive car data?
Recipients and purposes depend on the manufacturer, connected service, settings and applicable law. Ford’s U.S. notice names several categories: affiliates; contracted service providers; organizations that provide services to drivers or work jointly with Ford; product-promotion partners; authorized dealers receiving VIN-based vehicle-health information; professional advisers; courts, regulators, government authorities and law enforcement; and parties to corporate transactions. The notice describes these disclosures as subject to stated purposes and applicable law.
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What the GM and OnStar case does—and does not—show
The FTC’s case involving General Motors and OnStar is a specific example of driving and location information reaching consumer reporting agencies; it is not evidence that every automaker shares data with insurers. In January 2025, the FTC announced its action and described allegations that OnStar Smart Driver enrollment did not clearly disclose the collection and sharing of precise location and driving behavior, including hard braking, late-night driving and speeding. The FTC said some users’ locations were collected as often as every three seconds and that consumer reporting agencies used information in reports that insurers used in insurance decisions. FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said: “GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds.” That statement concerned the GM matter and the FTC’s action and allegations at that time. FTC’s January 2025 announcement.
In January 2026, the FTC finalized an order. It imposes five years of restrictions on sharing specified geolocation and driver-behavior data with consumer reporting agencies, and 20 years of requirements concerning consent, data access and deletion, and consumer choice, subject to the order’s exceptions. Those obligations apply to the GM/OnStar matter; they are not a rule covering all car companies. FTC’s January 2026 order announcement.
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How privacy practices differ between cars
There is no single “car privacy” setting or industry-wide data policy. Mozilla Foundation analyzed privacy practices at 25 auto brands in 2023 and called cars the worst product category it had reviewed for privacy, as reported by the Associated Press. That figure describes the scope of Mozilla’s 2023 review, not every car or a current 2026 audit. Associated Press report on car data privacy.
For a useful vehicle-to-vehicle comparison, use notices for the same country and specific model year, then check these differences:
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- Which categories are collected: voice, media, location, driving, camera, diagnostics and phone-linked data.
- Whether processing is described as local to the vehicle or transmitted, and whether information is tied to an account, VIN or another identifier.
- Which recipient categories and secondary uses the notice names.
- How specific the controls are: whether you can separately manage voice, location, driving, camera, media and app connections.
- Which connected features may stop working if you opt out.
- How to request access or deletion, and how to reset the car and remove accounts when ownership changes.
Tesla’s privacy notice, for example, says camera AI is processed on the vehicle by default and that sharing recordings for fleet learning requires consent through the touchscreen. This is Tesla’s stated policy, not independent verification of processing in every vehicle, model or setting. Tesla privacy notice.
How to reduce sharing from your car
- Find the exact privacy notice. Search the automaker’s notice for your country and, where applicable, your model year. Read the sections on connected services, voice, location, driving data, cameras, media analytics and retention or deletion.
- Review the vehicle’s privacy and connectivity menus. Look for separate controls for voice assistant, location, driving or telematics, cameras, diagnostics, media analytics and app connections. Menu names and available switches differ by vehicle; use the owner’s manual if a control is unclear.
- Check accounts and phone apps. Review the automaker’s connected-service account and phone app as well as dashboard settings. Remove third-party account links and paired devices you do not want to keep. A phone or app connection can create a separate data path governed by that provider’s policy.
- Ask what is enabled and what rights are available. Contact the automaker to ask which collection and sharing settings apply to your vehicle and how to request access, deletion or an opt-out. Available rights and controls vary by manufacturer and jurisdiction. The Associated Press reports that Privacy4Cars offers a VIN-based privacy report and a service that can direct or submit data requests; verify its current geography, terms and availability before relying on it.
- Consider the feature trade-off. Ford says some connected services may not function correctly or be available if a driver withholds connected vehicle information. The Associated Press reports that disabling location can affect roadside assistance or remote app features. Check the consequence for the particular service before switching a control off.
As Mozilla’s Lauren Hendry Parsons told the Associated Press: “There are permissions in your settings that you can make choices about,” and “Go through on a granular level and look at those settings where you can.” The practical point is to check controls one category at a time rather than assume a single privacy switch covers every data path.
Before selling, returning or buying a used connected car
Use the vehicle’s owner-manual procedure to reset it, remove associated automaker and third-party accounts, and clear paired phones or imported personal data. Do this before handing over the vehicle, and check that the reset has completed. For a used car, review the previous owner’s account links and stored data before connecting your own services. Ford says deleting its phone app alone does not disable data sharing from the vehicle; the vehicle’s settings and connected services need separate attention.
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