Times Report on How Auto Lenders Track Borrowers’ Locations

Here.  Excerpt:

They can figure out when you leave town and see where you parked your car. They can see how many times you went to the grocery store or the health clinic.

Auto loans to Americans with poor credit have been booming, and many finance companies, credit unions and auto dealers are using technologies to track the location of borrowers’ vehicles in case they need to repossess them.

Such surveillance, lenders say, allows them to extend loans to more low- income Americans, knowing that they can easily locate the car. Lenders are also installing devices that enable them to remotely disable a car’s ignition after a borrower misses a payment.

Now, federal regulators are investigating whether these devices unfairly violate a borrower’s’ privacy.