Consumer Reports and Northeastern studied 15 automakers and found drivers can unknowingly agree to driving-data collection at a new car's first start-up. The exposure is consent given on a touchscreen, and tracking where the data goes falls to whoever owns the car or the fleet.
Perspective Coverage
5 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 24%
- Operator
- Operator 56%
- Investor
- Investor 20%
Reality
- Evidence60
- Adoption80
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives45
- Confidence60
buildOne report1 publisher Connecticut's Public Act 26-64 bans the sale of precise geolocation data as of October 1, 2026. Meeting that ban and the act's surveillance-pricing rules means changing the code that sends location fields to partners and sets prices.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap−5
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence50
Northeastern and Consumer Reports found all 21 cars they tested sent data to third-party domains, with more than half reaching ad or analytics firms. For fleet buyers and carmakers' product teams, the brand's phone app is the first place to check.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence50
The CCPA access machinery companies have been building since 2020 just got a field test from one reporter with a spreadsheet. The failures cluster in support queue design rather than in the law itself.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives45
- Confidence60
Atlas Data Privacy Corp sued the people-search broker Radaris under Daniel's Law, filed twice, and now holds an order transferring radaris.com and more than a dozen related domains to it.
Reality
- Evidence65
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives70
- Confidence62
Veridion raised $20m on the argument that quarterly-refreshed company data is history, and Experian says the resulting signals let it score businesses conventional credit files could not see. The release itself leaves open what counts as one of the 642 million companies.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+38
- Incentives78
- Confidence52
Their Lawfare essay says the architecture built after 9/11 now runs largely on data that companies gather for their own business, and it cites FBI Director Kash Patel's testimony that the bureau buys information on Americans from brokers.
Reality
- Evidence38
- Adoption35
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives62
- Confidence46
The order also requires GM to make location tracking easy to switch off and to let drivers see and delete what its Smart Driver feature collected. It binds GM alone, and only for five years.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption65
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives55
- Confidence60
The identifier that lets data brokers follow one handset from app to app is now disabled on government-issued phones at four US military organisations, after months of pressure from Senator Ron Wyden.
Publishers:bitdefender.com
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption55
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives40
- Confidence55
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation's letter to Congress argues privacy and national security, and the ban it asks for covers software and hardware, which is where the compliance work would actually land.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+45
- Incentives82
- Confidence45