What Your Car Knows About You
Who knows you best? Your spouse? Your smartphone? Google? Perhaps it is your car. Over the past decade or so, cars have become increasingly adept at retrieving and storing data, including that from smartphones. Your car may know more about you than you imagine.
It Knows What Makes You Happy
If your car has modern memory features, it knows where your seats need to be positioned for your comfort, what temperature the cabin should be, and even what music you like. Some vehicles can even adjust interior mood lighting to preset levels.
It May Know What Your Smartphone Knows
If you’ve connected your smartphone to your car, odds are your car knows the data that is in your smartphone. This can include your contacts, text messages, emails, call histories, and photos.
How You Drive
Cars are now constantly collecting data on how you drive, including speed, acceleration, and braking patterns. This information can be used in determining insurance rates and even to determine blame in automobile accidents. Yes, your car may even know if and when you are wearing your seat belt.
Where You Go
Your car’s navigation system knows where you go, how long you spend there and the routes you are most likely to take. As part of this information, it knows where you are likely to eat lunch, dinner, shop, and buy gas. Some buy-here / pay-here car dealers install GPS tracking so they know where to repo a car if payments are missed.
Why is it important that you know what your car knows about you? Because, at some point, you will want to sell or trade in your vehicle. Do you really want those private messages, contacts, and photos left in the car’s database?
Thankfully, they can be cleared through a series of steps and your car dealer can even help clear the data. There are a lot of reasons it is convenient for your car to collect data. It also can be a bit problematic when selling your car.
Protect yourself, your car, and your passengers with sufficient car insurance protection. We can help. Our independent auto insurance agents shop with a network of companies to find you the best value in car insurance. Contact us to get started today.
