Automakers prevail in lawsuit alleging data collection violated Washington Privacy Act

Automakers prevail in lawsuit alleging data collection violated Washington Privacy Act
Short Title	Automakers prevail in lawsuit alleging violation of Washington Privacy Act
Location	Washington
Date	November 7, 2023

Solove Harm	Surveillance, Exclusion
Information	Text messages, Call logs
Threat Actors	Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford

Individuals
Affected	Vehicle owners and passengers
High Risk Groups	Individuals whose mobile devices contain sensitive messages or calls
Tangible Harms	Lack of Consent, Changed Behavior

An appellate court upheld the dismissal of several class action lawsuits against automakers alleging that their vehicles' recording of their users' mobile communications violates the Washington Privacy Act.

Description

On November 7, 2023 the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the decision to dismiss 5 nearly identical class-action lawsuits against automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, and Ford. The lawsuits allege that their automobiles use software provided by Berla Corporation to download text messages and phone logs onto their on-board memory. While these records are not sent to the automakers, they could be accessed by law enforcement, provided there is a valid court order. The plaintiffs argued that this surveillance of their electronic communications violates the Washington Privacy Act (WPA). However, the lawsuits were dismissed due to the plaintiff's inability to prove harm. They did not provide evidence that any party accessed the stored records, and the appeals court wrote that "an invasion of privacy, without more, is insufficient to meet the statutory injury requirements." In addition to Surveillance, the alleged conduct would also constitute Exclusion, since users are not allowed access to their records, and many are not even aware that their information is being downloaded.