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# Connected cars are becoming surveillance devices for their manufacturers
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/connected-cars-are-becoming-surveillance-devices-for-their-manufacturers/
- Published: 2026-09-14T16:13:22.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:13:22.000Z
- Description: Modern vehicles collect granular behavioral data—location, driving patterns, phone contacts, browsing history—that manufacturers monetize directly or sell to insurers, brokers, and advertisers.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-consumer, privacy, data collection, consumer behavior

Source: [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/column/994172/your-car-is-selling-your-data?ref=adjacent.media)

Modern vehicles collect granular behavioral data—location, driving patterns, phone contacts, browsing history—that manufacturers monetize directly or sell to insurers, brokers, and advertisers. This creates a three-way extraction problem: manufacturers harvest data as a product line, insurers use it to raise premiums, and drivers have minimal transparency or control despite theoretically owning the vehicle. Carmakers are retrofitting consumer durables into data collection infrastructure, prioritizing monetization over the basic transparency and consent their customers would expect from any device tracking their movements.