Cars are becoming more than cars. This idea has been at the center of Elon Musk’s pitch to investors for years. “We should be thought of as an AI robotics company. If you value Tesla as just an auto company – it’s just the wrong framework,” he said during an investor’s call last year.
But do we really want this? And specifically, should we be concerned about all the data that our cars can collect from us? That is the question that experts explored during a panel at SXSW titled Data-Driven Dreams: Is Your Car Your Friend or Big Brother?
Jennifer Tisdale is CEO at GRIMM, a company that automakers hire to make attacks on their vehicles to determine vulnerabilities. Her team is pretty good at finding those vulnerabilities. “We have never had a vehicle that we haven’t been able to hack,” she said. “Not on the road, not in the sky, not in the sea.”
She said that vulnerabilities exist within our cars, but also within infrastructure for our cars (think the grid that powers electric vehicles). “My concern is what happens when, not if, we get an attack on our grid,” she said, pointing out attacks on critical infrastructure during the war in Ukraine. At that point, the dangers go beyond data protection to physical safety.
There are also concerns about how so much technology in cars can be abused on a smaller scale. “You see women who have had their cars used against them in terms of stalking and harassing,” said Erin Relford, a privacy engineer at Google. Indeed, a New York Times investigation in 2023 found that apps that track and control cars remotely were being used by abusive partners.
Tackling these issues will likely require legislative action. The European Union is leading the way when it comes to data protection, according to Relford, who referenced protections under the Data and AI acts. Some states have taken similar measures, but there has been no comprehensive reform at the federal level. Relford said at the end of the day it will be up to consumers demanding better privacy as a feature offered by car companies.
This article appears in March 7 • 2025.