Oregon is Proposing New Legislation to Curb Car Manufacturers from Carte Blanche Access to Driver Information

Oregon lawmakers are considering a new bill to give drivers more control over how car manufacturers collect and use their personal information.

The chief sponsor of House Bill 3875, Rep. David Gomberg (D-Otis), told a hearing of the House Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection on Tuesday that modern vehicles can automatically collect, store, and share data about driving habits with manufacturers. Vehicle owners were often unaware that this was happening.

The Oregon Consumer Privacy Act took effect last year and establishes data privacy requirements for businesses that have collected information on at least 100,000 Oregonians. The act gives consumers the right to access, obtain copies, or delete personal data collected or sold.

While the law applies to most major car manufacturers, proponents of HB 3875 believe niche car brands and startups could slip through unnoticed.

The bill will also require passenger car manufacturers to obtain the explicit consent of customers to share or sell data. Commercial truck manufacturers are exempted.

A 2023 report by the Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit behind the open-source web Firefox browser, examined the data practices of 25 major car brands and found that every automaker reviewed collected personal data from drivers.

Only two European manufacturers gave customers the right to delete their data. The report also found that 21 of 25 brands shared user information with third parties.

The Mozilla study found that cars could collect more personal information, like the user’s calendar entries and race. The info-gathering techniques were often linked to cell phones.

Tesla is Transforming the Automotive Industry

Meanwhile, Tesla is transforming the automotive industry with its advanced approach to data collection, analysis, and usage.

Today, most modern vehicles come equipped with sensors—such as cameras and radars—that gather information about drivers, other road users, and the surrounding environment.

This has created a global industry centered around connected car data, with information collected from billions of trips in millions of vehicles produced by leading automakers.

Tesla is at the forefront of this movement, with over 99% of its new vehicles featuring event data recorders (EDRs), commonly known as ‘black boxes.’ These devices activate in a crash, capturing five seconds of key data, including speed, acceleration, braking, steering input, and automatic braking and stability control usage. This information plays a crucial role in crash investigations.