Is your car reading your texts? Only the auto industry knows for sure

Your car may know more about you than you realize.

A series of federal lawsuits involving Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, and Ford alleged that vehicle infotainment systems downloaded and permanently stored private text messages and call logs from phones connected to the car.

For some users, GM collected precise location information as often as every three seconds.

The cases were dismissed. But not because a court established that the technology couldn’t do what the plaintiffs claimed.

Disappearing data

In the GM case, for example, the district court said the plaintiffs had not alleged sufficient injury under Washington’s privacy law. It also noted that they had not alleged GM itself reviewed, used, or even had the ability to retrieve the data stored in the vehicle.

So the case did not