Privacy4Cars, a technology company that develops tools to protect data privacy and secure vehicle data for automotive businesses, recently received a new federal patent for its system and method that rates vehicles on data privacy.

Awarded by the U.S. Patent Office, the patent marks the first AI method on record to score privacy in vehicles. It is the company’s 10th awarded patent so far.

The first-of-its-kind method will be featured in future expansions of Privacy4Cars' Vehicle Privacy Report tool. It will enhance disclosures to help vehicle occupants better understand the growing web of companies collecting, storing, using, making automated decisions, sharing, and/or selling data about them through their connected vehicles.

"We've leveraged emerging AI tools and technologies to create a new process that computes a dynamic privacy rating for vehicles based on public and proprietary datasets," said Andrea Amico, CEO and founder of Privacy4Cars, in a June 10 news release. "Consumers and regulators alike have voiced the need for a single, comprehensive privacy rating system that quickly rates and explains a vehicle's privacy score and its underlying drivers, similarly to how vehicle safety ratings are communicated.”

Amico added that the dynamic scoring system adjusts based on various factors, including changes in law and actions taken by consumers and/or companies.

U.S. Patent No. 12,287,904 focuses on generating AI models configured to generate scores for multiple attributes of one or more personal data handling approaches associated with a vehicle and/or an in-vehicle unit of the car that handles personal data of a user. It is the first method to leverage AI to create a dynamic scoring system and dynamic privacy-improving recommendations. 

It can be processed in real-time with the simple input of a vehicle's VIN or registration plate number.

Privacy4Cars offers two primary tools:

• Its patented product AutoCleared can manage, execute, and log the deletion of personal information from cars, such as phone numbers, call logs, location history, garage door codes, and more. Leading auto companies (OEM captives, auto finance, fleets, dealerships, etc.) have used it to safeguard more than two million drivers and passengers by erasing their personal data from vehicles they resold. 

• The company’s Vehicle Privacy Report tool offers full and transparent privacy disclosures used by over 700,000 consumers, and its dealer inventory badges generate millions of impressions per month.