Are your EV’s cameras, microphones and location data spying on you? Calls for tougher Australian laws as electric car sales boom Australia’s booming EV market is creating a new data privacy and national security challenge as increasingly sophisticated electric cars collect everything from location and driving patterns to voice recordings, cabin camera footage and biometric information. Now the Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AEVA) is calling on the Federal Government to introduce tough new laws governing what happens to that data, including requirements for sensitive information to be processed within the vehicle and personal vehicle data to be stored in Australia by default. The consumer EV advocacy group also wants optional data collection switched off unless owners actively opt in, greater protection against vehicle hacking and tougher controls over information transmitted overseas. The push comes as Australia experiences rapid EV growth and an unprecedented influx of new electric cars, many from China, fitted with increasingly sophisticated cameras, microphones, driver-monitoring systems, smartphone connectivity and permanently connected telematics. But while concerns about Chinese-made connected cars and where their data ends up have become part of the wider debate over cybersecurity and national security, AEVA argues Australia should regulate the technology rather than target vehicles based on where they were built. Its proposed rules would apply equally to Chinese, European, American, Japanese, Korean and other manufacturers selling connected vehicles here. “From Europe to USA, to China and the rest of Asia, we are lucky to welcome such an incredible range of electric cars to our shores,” said AEVA national president James Pickering. “We are great believers in compliance over country-of-origin and will continue our discussions with government to support consumer choice and protection, while also maintaining national security.” While EVs are at the forefront of the issue because of the sophisticated connected technology many