Driving a car is an important part of daily life for most people in the United States. However, people have a limited understanding of the privacy risks associated with data collected in an automotive context. The goal of this research was to investigate people’s awareness and perceptions of data collected about them by their cars, to better understand how their existing knowledge might affect how they think about driving data privacy. This poster presents preliminary findings from interviews focusing on participants’ reactions to data collected about their driving over a 12 week period. Participants were surprised by their driving data when it did not match what they remembered about their driving, and when it revealed broader patterns about their lives beyond their cars. Surprise signals an expectation violation due to unexpected data practices, which indicates data collection and use that participants did not anticipate. People cannot make informed privacy decisions about data and inferences they are not aware of, and so identifying when and why surprise occurs can help privacy designers create interventions targeted towards gaps in user knowledge.

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