Hyundai and Kia have agreed to a $200 million settlement to a class-action lawsuit involving a slew of car thefts due to the company’s easy to steal vehicles. Theft rings of “Kia Boyz” inspired by a viral social media challenge on the China-owned app TikTok have proven cars from both carmakers far easier to steal that other models due to a lack of electronic immobilizers, a common feature on most modern vehicles.
The “Kia Challenge” on the Chinese app TikTok led hundreds of people to engage in car thefts across the country, including at least 14 reported crashes and eight deaths, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.
The thieves, dubbed “the Kia Boyz,” would post instructional videos on TikTok and Google’s YouTube about how to get past the vehicles’ security system simple using tools, according to a report by the Verge.
Stealing the cars was reportedly easy to pull off due to many Kia and Hyundai vehicles made between 2015 and 2019 not having electronic immobilizers to stop thieves from breaking in and bypassing the ignition. The feature these Kia and Hyundai cars lack is standard equipment that can be found on virtually all other vehicles made around that same time period.
The settlement covers roughly 9 million owners in the U.S., and includes up to $145 million worth in out-of-pocket losses for consumers who had their vehicles stolen, according to report by Reuters.
Earlier this year, Hyundai and Kia offered free software updates to extend the length of an alarm from 30 seconds to one minute, as well as to require a key in the ignition switch in order to turn a car on.
“We appreciate the opportunity to provide additional support for our owners who have been impacted by increasing and persistent criminal activity targeting our vehicles,” Jason Erb, chief legal officer at Hyundai Motor North America, said. “Customer security remains a top priority.”
While it remains unclear exactly how many Hyundai and Kia vehicles have been stolen, police in Milwaukee have reported 469 Kia’s and 426 Hyundai’s were stolen in 2020. Those numbers spiked the following year to 3,557 Kia’s and 3,406 Hyundai’s.
The recent car thefts is simply the latest way in which the Chinese app TikTok disrupts American life.
TikTok, which the federal government considers a national security threat and therefore bans the app from government devices, is also known for being a danger to children and teens, spreading other internet “challenges” that result in trips to the hospital, and in some cases, death.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese tech company, ByteDance, has been caught snooping on U.S. and UK journalists in multiple instances.
As Breitbart News reported, ByteDance employees have obtained the private user data of U.S. journalists. The Chinese company was also recently discovered having tracked a UK journalist via her cat’s TikTok account, which didn’t even have her real name on it.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.