The Alliance for Automotive Innovation is running ads telling Massachusetts voters that expanding the state's right-to-repair law would open the door to sexual predators.

Massachusetts voters will decide this fall whether to expand an existing law allowing people to get their automobiles serviced at any auto shop they want by requiring manufacturers to share vehicle information with independent shops and not just dealers, the news site Vice reported. Massachusetts was the first state to enact a right-to-repair law, which supporters such as the Auto Care Alliance point to as a model for other states to follow.

The manufacturers that make up the membership of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation oppose right-to-repair laws and are seeking to defeat the upcoming ballot issue, which asks voters whether they want to end an exemption for vehicles that transmit data wirelessly.

Through the Coalition for Safe and Secure Data, the association has been running TV ads suggesting that sexual predators could use that data to stalk victims. One ad is shown from the viewpoint of a stalker sneaking up on a woman in a darkened parking garage. Another shows a man apparently breaking into a home using stolen vehicle info.

Local news outlets have debunked the claims in the ads, according to Vice. A spokesman for the coalition acknowledged at least some of the data in question is already available to consumers and independent companies, but "they would be enormously magnified if Question 1 passes, as it would make all that information accessible remotely and in real time, without ever having to plug into a vehicle."

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