What Has Your Car Been Secretly Recording About You?

What If Your Car Has Been Snitching on You This Whole Time?

Your car isn’t a machine.
It’s a confession booth on wheels, and it doesn’t even need you to speak.

Think about it.
You never sat down and told your vehicle where you go on Sundays, who you call on the drive home, or how many times you slam the brakes after speeding through a yellow.
But it knows.

Now the scariest part: it doesn’t just know. It's reporting.

When exactly did we agree to drive government informants?
When did the open road turn into a network of surveillance terminals?

In this newsletter, we're peeling back the average "smart" car — from crash recorders and phone-hoovering dashboards to cabin cameras and kill switches. You’re gonna learn who your car’s been whispering to, why it’s happening, and how to reclaim some damn control.

After 15 years in cybersecurity, I’ve found no device more invasive than the modern car.

Did My Tesla Narc on Me? (Yes, Yours Might Too)

Back when I still thought Elon was misunderstood and not a not-see, I bought a Tesla.

And I loved it.

The UI felt like something out of sci-fi. Autopilot made me feel like I wasn’t on the brink of certain death when I drove. The acceleration even felt like a slingshot.

Then the data started speaking.

First, the car tracked my exact location.
No surprise. It had GPS.

But then I found out it was logging every song I played. Every time I floored it. Every single Autopilot disengagement.
Cool turned to clinical.

Then I noticed the cabin camera.

It wasn’t facing the road. It was staring straight at my face.
I found out later that Tesla employees had access to that footage. Some of them shared clips internally.
Reuters broke the story: private videos captured in garages and driveways — one clip showed a guy naked.

That was the line.

This wasn’t about tech anymore. It was about control I never signed off on.

And here’s the truth: it’s not just Tesla.
Modern cars — Hondas, Fords, Chevys — they’re all doing it. Quietly. Constantly.

You think you’re just syncing music or checking a map.
But you’re leaving behind a digital trail: contacts, call history, photos, GPS breadcrumbs.
Stored. Sometimes forever. Often exposed.

People still talk about the internet tracking us. But we invited something worse into our lives.
And most of us gave it a garage.

What’s Inside Your Car — And Why Is It Recording You?

By the time your seatbelt clicks, your car has already started logging.

Not just your location. Not just your route.

It’s capturing how hard you hit the gas, how much tension is in the wheel, and where your eyes are looking.

Your car is recording more data than your phone, and most people have no idea.

Here’s what it’s watching — and storing.

Event Data Recorders (EDRs): The Black Box That Never Shuts Up

If your car was built after 2014, it has an EDR.
This thing quietly records:

• Speed

• Brake pressure

• Steering

• Seatbelt use

• Throttle at time of crash

It’s like a mini time machine — recording 20 seconds before and 10 seconds after any major event. And it doesn’t wait for your permission. It’s always on.
That data isn’t private, either. In many states, cops or insurance adjusters can pull it without a warrant.

Telematics: The Built-In Modem Snitching in Real Time

Cars with OnStar, Toyota Connected, or Ford SYNC don’t just help you find parking — they send your trip data to remote servers in real time.

That includes:

• Exact GPS location

• Engine diagnostics

• Seat sensor readings

• Cabin mic audio

• Driver alertness scoring

One watchdog group found cars transmit hundreds of data points per second — constantly, quietly, to people you’ll never meet.

And if you’re thinking “I never signed up for that,” you did. It’s buried in your Terms of Service.

Infotainment Systems: Your Digital Diary, Downloaded

You plug in your phone to charge or play Spotify.
The car responds by copying:

• Your contacts

• Texts

• Call logs

• Calendar

• GPS pins

• Photos

A study in 2023 found that 4 out of 5 used cars still had previous owners’ data in the dashboard — including home addresses and nudes.

Worse? That data often survives factory resets.

Your center console is more than a screen — it’s a hard drive full of breadcrumbs.

Cabin Cameras and Mics: Watching You From the Inside

Originally marketed for “driver safety,” cabin cameras now do much more. They detect:

• Eye movement

• Drowsiness

• Facial tension

• If you’re speaking

• Whether you’re alone

And some models send that footage back to HQ.

Your car doesn’t ask. It just films. And once it does, you don’t control where that footage ends up.

Final Snapshot: 25GB Per Hour. Per Vehicle.

That’s how much data the average connected car generates.
At U.S. driving rates, that’s 20 terabytes a year — on you.

The question isn’t “is my car tracking me?”
The question is: who else is getting that data?

Who’s Watching All This Data — And What Are They Doing With It?

Let’s follow the trail.

Once your car collects the data, it doesn’t just sit there.
It gets processed. Packaged. Sold.

And not just once.

That data is a product — and you’re not the customer. You’re the source.

Automakers: The First to Profit

The company that built your car is also the one selling your driving history.

• GM shared OnStar data with insurance companies without telling drivers.

• BMW tested dashboard ads based on your location.

• Ford and Toyota work with third-party brokers to monetize trip logs and behavioral patterns.

Entire teams exist inside these companies just to turn your movements into revenue streams.

Insurance Companies: Surveillance-as-a-Discount

Those “safe driving” programs like Progressive Snapshot are black boxes with a smile.

They track:

• Your driving times

• Phone usage while driving

• Route and speed

• Reaction time

If you opt in and drive “badly,” they raise your rates.
If you don’t opt in, you’re flagged as high-risk.

It’s another shady example of scoring behavior for profit.

Data Brokers: The Hidden Middlemen

You’ve probably never heard of Otonomo or Wejo, but they’re scraping data from millions of vehicles and selling it to:

• Retail developers (to study traffic)

• Hedge funds (to predict markets)

• Advertisers (to target you)

• Banks (to score your reliability)

One firm bragged it was collecting 4.1 billion data points per day.
That includes where you went. When. How often. How fast.

Law Enforcement and ICE: Warrant-Free Access

Because of outdated surveillance laws, agencies like ICE and local police can buy your driving history from brokers or request it from automakers — no warrant required.

It’s been used to:

• Track and detain undocumented immigrants

• Pinpoint protestors

• Geofence entire neighborhoods based on trip history

There are now third-party firms that let you geo-locate any car in the U.S. — if you can pay.

Rental Car Companies and Dealerships: Where Data Goes to Linger

Every time you rent a car or trade one in, your data has a high chance of staying behind.

• 60% of renters don’t realize their phone synced

• 80% of used cars retain personal data

• Infotainment units often hold:

  • GPS bookmarks

  • Call logs

  • Contacts

  • Saved garage codes

  • Even voice samples

There are techs who pull this data on purpose.
And yes, some of it has ended up online.

When you give a car back, you’re not just handing over keys.
You’re handing over a digital twin.

Can Your Car Be Stopped — Remotely — Without Your Say?

In 2026, a new federal rule kicks in:
Every new car must include tech to prevent impaired driving.

Sounds noble. Until you read the fine print.

This system won’t ask if you’ve had a drink.
It will monitor your behavior in real-time, detect patterns, and stop your car from starting if it thinks you’re a threat.

That means:

• You could be blocked from driving based on how you moved the wheel.

• You may never know what data triggered it.

• And you’ll have no way to override it.

Even worse — the hardware will enable remote disablement.

That makes your car... remote-controllable. Not by you.

Already, millions of cars have OnStar’s “Stolen Vehicle Slowdown.”
Police request activation, and OnStar throttles your engine remotely until the vehicle is paralyzed.

If that sounds useful — think again.

Now picture:

• Protesters being disabled mid-march

• Cities rolling out curfews with digital keys

• Hackers bricking thousands of cars with a rogue command

Once every vehicle has a remote off-switch, all it takes is one bad actor — government, corporation, or script kiddie — to strand an entire city.

Why Are Rental Cars and Used Vehicles Basically Digital Crime Scenes?

You ever synced your phone to a rental car for directions or music?

Then you probably left behind:

• Text messages

• Call logs

• GPS pins

• Contacts

• Maybe even your home address or garage code

Now picture the next person who rents that car.
They scroll through the console and see your name. Your messages. Your house on the map.

It happens constantly.

Security researchers have:

• Extracted nude selfies from infotainment backups

• Pulled voice samples from old voice command data

• Recovered calendar entries with doctor appointments and private addresses

And here’s the kicker: most rental agencies don’t wipe the systems.
Used car dealers? Even less likely.

That means every time someone sells, loans, or crashes a car, they’re leaving behind a map of their life.

If you’ve ever driven a connected car, your data is probably still out there — somewhere inside someone else’s dashboard.

How Do You Reclaim Privacy on the Road — Without Going Off the Grid?

You don’t need to rip out your dashboard with a crowbar. But you do need to treat your car like a semi-public device — because that’s exactly what it is. You wouldn’t leave your unlocked phone on a subway seat, right? So why are we doing it with rentals, loaners, and trade-ins?

Welcome to Drive Clean Mode — the modern driver's resistance kit.

Start here:

• Never pair your phone with rental cars, loaners, or test drives. Even a 60-second sync can copy your call logs, texts, contacts, and GPS breadcrumbs into the infotainment system.

• Don’t use in-car text, voice commands, or nav search unless you’re prepared to wipe that data later. These systems remember more than you’d think — and in some cases, survive factory resets.

• Skip “safe driver” programs from insurance companies. They don’t just score your habits — they penalize you if you don’t opt in. That’s surveillance wrapped in a discount.

Next, build a simple routine that puts you back in control:

• Factory reset your infotainment system before selling or trading in your vehicle. If you’re not sure how, ask your dealer — and don’t leave until you watch them do it.

• Manually delete your phone from rental cars before and after you drive. Don’t just disconnect — nuke the pairing from the system memory.

• Physically block cabin cameras with a sliding lens cover or tape. If that’s not legal in your state, disable the camera in settings and take a screenshot for your records.

• Ask your dealer what telematics systems are active — then opt out. Push if they push back. You have more control than they let on.

And here’s your toolkit:

• Download Privacy4Cars — a free app that walks you through how to wipe infotainment systems by make and model.

• Encrypt your phone. Always. If your car grabs a chunk of it, at least it’s unreadable.

• Turn off Wi-Fi hotspot sharing. Some car systems sync data silently over open networks.

  And don’t forget the mental reset:

You don’t need to go off-grid. But you do need to start acting like your car is watching. Because it is.

📣 Want the full research? This was just the surface.

The automaker contracts. The data broker pipelines. The subpoena loopholes. The full resistance toolkit.

We couldn’t fit it all in here — but we documented everything.

👉 Join the Cyber Resistance Club to unlock:

• Full investigative notes and sources

• Redacted reports on car tracking programs

• A complete second brain template to track your own privacy risks

• Members-only updates on what’s coming next (and how to beat it)

You're not paranoid. You're just finally looking at the dashboard with your eyes open.

Stay Curious,

Addie LaMarr