Photo by beachmobjellies
Stung by Kia recently published an article regarding General Motor’s woes after being sued by a Florida resident who alleges GM & OnStar sold data regarding his driving habits including how fast he accelerated and braked to data broker LexisNexis, who then in turn created a report sold to the driver’s insurance company. The driver said he never “opted in” to his data being used in this way, nor was he aware GM was collecting or selling this information on him.
Five months ago Stung by Kia also posted regarding a different lawsuit alleging Honda and Ford were downloading and storing cellphone call history data from car occupants when they connected their phone to the car’s infotainment system.
According to press reports, fourteen car manufacturers are currently being scrutinized for selling data about their customers, driving habits, and/or information gathered when connecting a cellphone to a infotainment system.
Since car owners rarely read the terms & conditions or privacy policy related to features offered by car manufacturers, we decided to look at Kia Connect Privacy Policy (11/21/2023) to see what information Kia is allowing themselves to collect on you, their customer. This is what the Privacy Policy allows Kia to record:
- Your name, address, email address, telephone number, financial account numbers, physical characteristics, age, race, skin color, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex and gender and your Vehicle Identification Number.
- Records of your personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered; or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
- Your browser history, search history, and information regarding interactions with an Internet Web site, application, or advertisement.
- Your physical location or movements.
- Inferences drawn from the above information which may reflect your preferences, characteristics, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, or similar behavioral information.
After Kia gathers the aforementioned information on you, in what ways will Kia use that data in regard to third parties?
- Crash Notification Assistance: automatically connect drivers to police, fire, or ambulance services in the event of an airbag deployment in your vehicle.
- Roadside Assistance: Kia may provide roadside assistance providers with your location in the event you request roadside assistance.
- Content-Based Services: The location of your vehicle is collected and used to provide content-based services such as navigation, maps, guidance, point-of-interest searches, and finding your closest charging station (for Kia electric vehicles), etc.
- My Car Zone Features: Kia Connect Services may allow you or others to obtain information about a vehicle. Through Kia Connect Services you can opt through the My Car Zone curfew alert, geo-fence and speed watch features.
- Driving Score: When Kia Connect Services are active your driving behavior data may be shared with our service providers to help generate your Driving Score.
- Usage-Based Insurance: If your Kia Connect subscription has the Driving Score feature, you may be presented with an option on the Kia Connect Services to opt in and directly disclose, or have us share, certain Personal Information and Vehicle Information to third-party service providers, including data providers, who may, in turn, share this information with insurance companies participating in the usage-based insurance (“UBI”) program.
- Legal Reasons: Kia may share your information to satisfy applicable laws, regulation, subpoenas, court orders, warrants, governmental requests, or legal process if in our good faith opinion such is required or permitted by law. Note – this provision allows Kia to divulge personal information about you to law enforcement, even without a subpoena or court order.