New Act Grants Owners Full Control Over Car Data: Manufacturers Must Get Consent to Track You

The Auto Data Privacy and Autonomy Act (ADPAA) is here to lay down some serious ground rules for what your car, truck, or even your farm tractor can do with your personal data. Essentially, this bill says that the data pouring out of your vehicle belongs to you, and manufacturers can’t touch it without your explicit permission. This isn’t just about your name and email; it covers "covered data," which includes everything from your saved contacts (User Data) to your location history (Geolocation Data) and sensor readings (Vehicle-Generated Data).

Your Car, Your Consent, Your Data

Under this Act, manufacturers must get your affirmative express consent before they collect, use, or share any covered data. This consent can’t be buried in the fine print of your purchase agreement; it has to be separate, specific, and clearly spell out exactly what data categories they want, why they want it, who they plan to share it with, and how long they’ll keep it. If you’re busy and just want to drive, this is huge: the bill specifically prohibits anyone from conditioning the sale or lease of a vehicle on you agreeing to hand over your data. So, no more digital blackmail at the dealership.

For the average person, this means you finally get to be the gatekeeper of your own driving history. If you decide later you aren't comfortable with your car company knowing your daily commute route, you have the right to opt out of collection, and that opt-out must take effect within 30 days. You also gain the right to access all the data collected from your vehicle in a portable format, correct anything that’s wrong, and demand that the manufacturer delete your data entirely (with a few exceptions).

Factory Reset and Foreign Threats

The ADPAA requires manufacturers to build in simple, easy-to-use mechanisms that put you in control. Think of it like a master reset button for your vehicle’s digital life. You must be able to delete all user data and restore all user preferences to factory settings. This is key for trade-ins or when selling your car privately—you can wipe the slate clean without needing a technician. Manufacturers also have to implement strong security measures to protect the data that is collected.

There are also some significant prohibitions on how the data can be used. For instance, manufacturers are banned from using your vehicle data to create facial recognition templates or for real-time facial recognition. Furthermore, the bill takes national security seriously, prohibiting the sharing of personally identifiable information belonging to U.S. citizens with the governments of specific adversarial nations, including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.

The Fine Print on Enforcement

Enforcement of this new law falls to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which will treat violations as an unfair or deceptive act. This is where the rubber meets the road—or potentially doesn’t. While the FTC is fully empowered to enforce the Act and apply civil penalties, the bill explicitly states that no new appropriations are authorized. The FTC must use its existing budget to carry out these new, extensive requirements. For an agency already stretched thin, adding the massive task of overseeing data privacy for the entire automotive, farming, and construction vehicle industries without extra funding could mean that enforcement might struggle to keep pace with violations.

Finally, Section 4 of the Act includes a provision that overrides any state or local law concerning the data access and control requirements. While the overall bill aims to set a high bar for privacy, this preemption clause means that if any state had already passed a stronger law regarding the access and control of vehicle data, that state law is now superseded by the federal standard. This is a common sticking point in federal privacy legislation, as it can sometimes result in removing stronger local protections in favor of a uniform, but potentially less robust, national floor.