Data Privacy: It's Time to Treat Your Car Like a Smartphone
Lauren Smith, a FPF Policy Counsel, was recently featured in 2025 AD. Lauren leads the FPF Connected Cars Working Group, and serves a global expert and thought leader through speaking engagements, media interviews, and interaction with state and federal regulators and strategic partners. In this exclusive interview, she discusses best practices to advance privacy practices and understanding as new mobility technologies come to market. Lauren explains:
“The existence of data in the car is not a new phenomenon. Event data recorder and onboard diagnostics have been in cars for decades. But in the past few years there has been an explosion in the variety, the connectivity and the volume of data. Cars are no longer simply mechanical chassis that take us from point A to point B. It’s time for people to treat their cars like a computer or a smartphone. If you sell your car or return your rental car, you should think about which data you might want to delete.”
