John,

When you get into your car in the morning, you probably think that what you say in the car stays in the car. Turns out your car just might be spying on you.

A federal judge on last week refused to bring back a class action lawsuit against four major automakers that alleged they violated Washington state privacy laws by using vehicle infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ text messages and call logs. That's a big win for automakers, effectively giving them an OK to use your car to spy on you. Automakers are able to download the data, which cannot be accessed by customers, and then boost revenues by selling it to advertisers. Critically, the data can be accessed by law enforcement.¹ In the United States, law enforcement can ask for this data (without a warrant) or simply find hackers-for-hire to retrieve it.²

Everyday we see stories like these that remind us how important it is to advance strong privacy legislation.³ Will you support our ongoing fight for real legislative progress on data privacy?

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Strong data privacy legislation at the federal level would protect all of us. Our recently relaunched Data Privacy Now campaign demands Congress get to work on an issue that so many of us agree on: we need data privacy NOW.⁴

Your donation directly funds grassroots efforts to push for legislation that upholds privacy as a human right. Can you chip in?

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Terri at Fight ❤️

Footnotes:

1. Court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages | The Record

2. After Researching Cars and Privacy, Here's What Keeps Us up at Night | Mozilla  

3. Data Broker’s Staggering Sale of Sensitive Info Exposed in Unsealed FTC Filing | Ars Technica

4. Data Privacy Now | Fight for the Future