Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

https://apnews.com/article/auto-car-privacy-3674ce59c9b30f2861d29178a31e6ab7

by MilnerRoute • 8 months ago

326 358 8 months ago

cluckindan• 8 months ago

No doubt about this one. But, how much are the ubiquitous ride-for-hire e-scooters spying on you, and everyone else on the street?

AtlasBarfed• 8 months ago

It's where we are. Everything everywhere is collecting data and spying.

If it exists in a database, then the government has access to that database if it ever wants to legally or otherwise. It's been like that since 9:11 and probably before.

All we need now is for the right person to walk in and turn the key. We're lucky that Donald Trump is probably too stupid to understand what he's got under his thumb.

josefritzishere• 8 months ago

Comment of the year.

add-sub-mul-div2• 8 months ago

He's a useful president surrounded by smarter people who will figure out ways to use this data rather than sit around tweeting all day.

cmdoptesc• 8 months ago

Those e-scooters are a red herring. Ring cameras on everyone's front door and automated license plate readers (ALPR) on police vehicles and Flock cameras throughout cities are bigger concerns in America.

Flock is already known to assist the government surveilling protestors:

- [CBP is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with suspicious travel patterns](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45996860)

- [How Cops Are Using Flock Safety's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flo...)

- [Amazon has a form so police can get my (Ring) data without permission or a warrant](https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/14/23219419/amazon-ring-law-...)

chneu3• 8 months ago

The even worse part of Flock isn't that they cooperate with the government, it's that there is(or was) basically no security in the service. Cops from one state can/could use flock services from other states. A few cops got caught stalking via Flock.

Flock takes the "do nothing until forced to" mentality.

balamatom2• 8 months ago

Enough to make sure the kids won't undercut the cartel this time around.

jmclnx• 8 months ago

IIRC, Massachusetts passed a right-to-repair law a few years ago. Based upon the text of the law, all new cars purchased there have the spying disabled because they did not want to give up their proprietary info.

There have been a lot of court cases about that law by the manufacturers, so I do not know the status at this point.

So I wonder if that is still the case. If it is and an out of state person buys new there, will that "spying" remain disabled when they bring the car home ?

anonymars2• 8 months ago

Theoretically, that should be a catch-22, right?

How would they know you're no longer in Massachusetts, without the spying enabled while within Massachusetts?

sejje• 8 months ago

Because "spying" in this case means "sending data to the mothership."

It doesn't mean "the car's gps is disabled"

more_corn• 8 months ago

Is there anything we can do about it short of avoiding new cars? Our legislators have proven unwilling to pass real privacy laws.

DonHopkins• 8 months ago

Ride a bike.

pixelpoet2• 8 months ago

I've never had a driver's licence, lived in a zillion countries; don't think I could do that in America though.

chneu3• 8 months ago

Not possible when things are 10+ mile apart and a general grocery run takes 3+ hours and you can't carry more than a backpack, so you have to do it multiple times a week.

amelius• 8 months ago

Moving to the EU becomes a more appealing option every day.

pixelpoet2• 8 months ago

Greetz from Germany, we have Chat Control now even though we've been trying to reject it for at least 3 years.

Autocracy is just everywhere these days, Noah get the boat.

f1shy2• 8 months ago

No panacea here! Better in some points. In general privacy. OTOH many things are not afvancing.

closewith7• 8 months ago

In the EU, eCall is mandatory and disabling it fails most roadworthiness checks and voids most insurance policies, so it doesn't help much.

Also, while the EU does (for now) have stronger privacy protections for citizens against corporate interests, the opposite is true in most EU countries for Government surveillance.

CamperBob25• 8 months ago

This crap is being done because of EU rules. It's "for your protection." The vehicles are being secured from you.

https://www.coro.net/blog/what-new-eu-cybersecurity-rules-me...

https://www.dw.com/en/new-eu-cybersecurity-rules-push-carmak...

throwaway2027• 8 months ago

No. Enjoy the ride.

qmr• 8 months ago

Defeatist and cowardly.

markus_zhang• 8 months ago

Maybe there is a way to pollute the data? At least it makes data cleaning more expensive.

chasing0entropy2• 8 months ago

Yes - remove the telematics radio and GPS antennas. They are usually in the overhead console area around/behind the lighting and mirror controls.

In BMWs, the gps antenna is behind the upper lights, the telematics and V2V antenna is in the sharkfin(unplug it from underneath the headliner)

f1shy2• 8 months ago

In some seem to be in the fin antenna:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqFdFO_STJ0

encom2• 8 months ago

But what's the point if you're just going to use Android Auto or Apple's car-thing instead? You're just letting some other company invade your privacy.

ryandrake4• 8 months ago

Giving car companies your money (and then modifying your car) is still rewarding car companies for their bad behavior. We really need to stop buying new cars and somehow make it clear that telematics are the reason, but it's never going to happen. Not enough people care, and of those who care, not enough of them care enough to stop buying these cars.

stavros5• 8 months ago

In my BYD Seal, I removed the SIM card that's easily accessible from inside the armrest compartment.

chasing0entropy2• 8 months ago

Remove the antennas. Do not give in to the mirage of convenience.

Use a stand alone generic GPS. Vehicle GPS devices are anti privacy for so many reasons.

Listen to stored music from an SD card if terrestrial radio (NO SATELLITE). Did you know almost ALL late model cars can play a <128gb FAT32 USB drive with non- vbr mp3s? 64gb filled with 168kb mp3 audio would take roughly 3 years at 4 hours a day to listen to.

TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Your phone does more than track you - the Bluetooth and wifi beacon scanners are always running. When you come across another person, most phones track the intersection of your beacon with theirs making a new data point that compromises both individuals privacy. Now consider sitting at a stoplight; you and and the 10 phones around you have now correlated the time and position you were sitting there. The person jogging by with no phone(but a set of Bluetooth headphones) is also tracked by their Bluetooth signature. Terrifying.

Disable autonomous driving hardware by unplugging the cables from the interior cameras. If your car needs to see and feel you in order to do it's job, it's co-dependent; break up with it.

Ignore your car's complaints and error messages. Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

galleywest200• 8 months ago

Ignore your car's complaints and error messages. Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

"Tire pressure low" is one you should probably check out on a regular basis.

chneu3• 8 months ago

Yeah that's terrible advice. Learning to ignore safety warnings is an amazing way to wind up stranded or with a destroyed car because you decided to ignore a warning light

sda2• 8 months ago

it may be better to code out TPMS anyways. I had a BMW that wouldn't allow you to enter Sport/Sport+ when TPMS light was on, what a drag.

everdrive4• 8 months ago

But in exchange for being tracked we've been saved from the scourge of occasionally checking our tire pressure. Why, I'd give up almost anything just to be slightly more comfortable.

gruez2• 8 months ago

TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Your phone does more than track you - the Bluetooth and wifi beacon scanners are always running. When you come across another person, most phones track the intersection of your beacon with theirs making a new data point that compromises both individuals privacy. Now consider sitting at a stoplight; you and and the 10 phones around you have now correlated the time and position you were sitting there. The person jogging by with no phone(but a set of Bluetooth headphones) is also tracked by their Bluetooth signature. Terrifying.

All phones nowadays have bluetooth/wifi mac address randomization, so it's basically useless for tracking, not to mention google/apple conscripting every phone into a wardriving network will kill battery life. Moreover all this effort in avoiding being tracked doesn't really mean much when all cars have a very visible and unique identifier that's mandated by law (ie. license plate).

alwa• 8 months ago

And Flock Safety will gladly fingerprint the vehicles without said license plate, and distribute everyone’s location histories nationally.

See also (222 points, 19 comments, 14 days ago):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945960

gattilorenz• 8 months ago

All phones nowadays have bluetooth/wifi mac address randomization

Source?

tavavex10• 8 months ago

Moreover all this effort in avoiding being tracked doesn't really mean much when all cars have a very visible and unique identifier that's mandated by law (ie. license plate).

I agree with the first half, but not this. The difference between people seeing your license plate and your car/phone/etc systematically recording and storing your exact position is the same as the difference between someone on the street seeing my face vs. a facial recognition camera identifying me and storing that data point forever. People don't memorize or care about your plates. The police could take note of them or even put it on some record, but the number of cops is so low (and the number of cops that would care about my license plates is even lower) that whatever scraps of data are recorded would probably be pretty useless - and besides, that data isn't sold off to private entities, at least where I am.

worldsavior• 8 months ago

Ok stop with the panicking.

What's wrong with GPS in vehicles? If it's not connected to the internet, there is no issue.

What's wrong with playing music from the phone on Bluetooth or Aux? Did you also know you can ride a horse instead of a car?

Bluetooth and WiFi isn't running if you turned them off. Bluetooth also isn't really used for tracking unless someone is looking for you or you're part of some service like AirTags.

Ignore your car's complaints and error messages. Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

What? Worse advice out there regarding cars.

CamperBob25• 8 months ago

If it's not connected to the internet, there is no issue.

It's connected to the Internet. Every car has a SIM card now.

vitaflo5• 8 months ago

What's wrong with GPS in vehicles? If it's not connected to the internet, there is no issue.

The GPS module is usually on the same board as the cellular module. Disconnecting the board (usually in the shark fin) disconnects the GPS module too.

u8080• 8 months ago

Bluetooth and WiFi isn't running if you turned them off.

BT and WiFi are running when turned off, at least on Android without extra opting out.

encom2• 8 months ago

Do not give in to the mirage of convenience.

I sympathise. However, being able to start de-icing my car while still in bed at 5:30 on a January morning is a powerful feature. And I'm the kind of person who wraps his tin foil hat no less than 10 layers thick.

Ideally this shouldn't involve the internet, because the car is in wifi range, but what can I do about it?

ryandrake4• 8 months ago

People are suggesting all over these threads what we can do about it, but we (as a population) aren't. When my 2009 car dies, I'm going to deliberately NOT buy a new trackingmobile, and try to find another 2009 car to keep running. Yea, that means I occasionally need to take 30 seconds to scrape ice off the windshield. Big deal.

m4635• 8 months ago

I have this with my keyfob.

later vehicles "helpfully" removed this in favor of online remote starting (with added telematics)

AngryData3• 8 months ago

You could probably get a 3rd party remote starter, however that is going to certainly cost you extra and probably won't be as simple as old school remote starters.

teeray• 8 months ago

Remove the antennas. Do not give in to the mirage of convenience.

ERROR: unable to start engine.

m4635• 8 months ago

Please drink a verification can.

Actually I wonder if cars will just adopt "oh-you-need-anti-theft" like phones do. To prevent auto theft, all cars will be tracked and all parts must match serial numbers.

rasz• 8 months ago

In case of Subaru its "we are sorry your battery died trying to aggressively reconnect to the mothership, no we wont be paying for the replacement"

jeroenhd12• 8 months ago

Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

Your car will happily display an orange light while a bad fuel mixture is poisoning your catalytic converter to the point where it needs replacing to meet any kind of emissions test. Same with other signs of engine stress.

Don't ignore dash lights unless you know what they mean or you're willing to pay the cost of disposing of your car.

Of course many places won't even allow you to disconnect all the antennae as a non-functional TPMS makes your car unroadworthy in various jurisdictions. You could quickly reconnect everything and clear the error codes before testing, but I'm not sure if the hassle is even worth the illusion that of being untraceable.

reppap• 8 months ago

No, I will use all this stuff and do so gladly.

mattmaroon2• 8 months ago

Yeah that’s great if you’re a CIA intelligence officer but what normal person can do this and still function in the modern world? Do the people who say this stuff leave their homes regularly?

And what’s the benefit of it all? Fewer targeted ads?

ranger_danger2• 8 months ago

Do the people who say this stuff leave their homes regularly?

Nope.

rTX5CMRXIfFG• 8 months ago

Leverage over your insurance provider sound good to you?

owenversteeg2• 8 months ago

I like the rest of the comment, but...

Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

That's not even remotely true for most cars. One of the most critical alarms you can get in a car is a flashing check engine light, which are usually orange.

harambae3• 8 months ago

Those are usually red, although I don’t know if it’s actually SAE standard or not, I’ve only worked for one automotive company (and we made them red)

mistrial92• 8 months ago

A 2013 Chevy Volt has a camera on the dashboard pointed at the driver. The entertainment dashboard has a dozen communication options, including those for safety? Zealots and the unhinged will quickly comment no doubt, but for the rational citizens I ask, when was this normalized? Was it automakers emboldened by the acceptance of cell phone central record keeping?

balamatom2• 8 months ago

Zealots and the unhinged will quickly comment no doubt, but for the rational citizens I ask, when was this normalized?

[laughs in unhinged zealot]

potato37328424• 8 months ago

"Safety" is a magic word like "god" was a thousand years ago. If you say it just right you can manufacture an excuse to do all sorts of stuff that'll clearly lead to bad stuff if left to run.

They undoubtably said things like "if it saves even one person from falling asleep at the wheel it's worth it" or something along those lines.

luqtas2• 8 months ago

this is still a technology advancement... what if smartphone usage or asleep safely stops the car? what if this run locally? or what if it's linked to public entities that will add penalty points to your license?

as a cyclist and public transport user with no driver license, i hope personal vehicles have so much sensors that they can detect if you are drunk or stressed and limit your reaches. fuck your metallic beetle

emidln4• 8 months ago

My 2025 Mazda Miata has a CAN connected Telematics Control Unit that sends a bunch of data to Mazda on ignition off. Among this data is acceleration and velocity data along with coordinates sampled for where you were. It is also used as a gateway for the Mazda app to start your car, query your vehicle's tire pressure, etc. It is claimed that you can opt out of this by calling Mazda and being persistent.

The CAN traffic is unencrypted. It was pretty easy to MITM this module with a cheap arm Linux board and a can transceiver to enable writing a two way filter capable of blocking the traffic that didn't raise any DTCs (that I observed) and could be turned on/off by the user. I preferred this approach to complete disconnection of the module (which is noticeable via errors at the diagnostic port) or trying to faraday cage or disable the antennae on the TCU so it can't remotely send/receive. I can also turn off my module or completely remove it before I sell it.

I fear the next version of Miata will be an encrypted CAN like most other cars have moved to and even with my expertise I won't be able to access the latest safety features from new cars without surrendering what little privacy I've been able to claw back.

CamperBob25• 8 months ago

I fear the next version of Miata will be an encrypted CAN like most other cars have moved to

As I understand it, they're required to do that now if they want to sell in the EU. They emphatically do not want anyone tinkering with their cars.

bri3d3• 8 months ago

They don’t want people modifying ADAS systems mostly, and the main requirement is SecOC, which is cryptographic authentication but the message is still plaintext. Basically they don’t want third party modifications able to randomly send the “steer left” message to the steering rack, for example.

M95D• 8 months ago

The CAN traffic is unencrypted. It was pretty easy to MITM this module with a cheap arm Linux board

And you didn't poison their databases and statistics with fake data?? OMG, I'm thinking of buying one of these cars just for this opportunity! (No, I'm not.)

emidln4• 8 months ago

I suspect this data is made "anonymous" and sold to insurance companies and misc data brokers. If it's linked to my insurance company, I don't want to jack my rates. Further, I've thus far avoided a CFAA conviction and I'd like to keep it that way.

elzbardico7• 8 months ago

Oh man. Logging insane average speeds and ludicrous acceleration during rush hour. Deliciously tempting idea.

nja• 8 months ago

Have you posted any writeups or other information about how you built this? I'm eyeing a Mazda as a next car (I've never owned a car newer than a 2014, and outside of that one, any newer than 2006, but family safety needs may lead to getting a newer car soon), and telemetry seems like one of the few downsides to an otherwise good carmaker. Would be very interested to learn more!

tavavex10• 8 months ago

(I've never owned a car newer than a 2014, and outside of that one, any newer than 2006, but family safety needs may lead to getting a newer car soon)

I don't know much about automotive safety, but has much actually changed since 2014 in terms of safety standards? I had thought that by the 2010s, basically everyone big had already figured out how to build a relatively safe car from a structural standpoint. Or are you only talking about electronic assistive features, like proximity sensors or lane assist?

wormslayer666• 8 months ago

I opted to try the "beg the manufacturer to turn off the panopticon" approach[1]. The first time I got 2 hours of elevator music before hanging up, the second I went through 3 levels of customer support before they claimed it was done (3 days later). Might have to steal your approach to verify that though...

[1] https://www.mazdausa.com/site/privacy-connectedservices

drnick110• 8 months ago

I see absolutely no reason not to completely unplug the cellular modem. The only thing that would stop me is an annoying error message or warning light in the gauge cluster. My car does not display any of these, but unplugging the modem results in losing the right speaker and microphone, unless a bypass harness is used.

vitaflo5• 8 months ago

The modem is usually in the sharkfin with the XM radio chipset and GPS. If you can unplug it at the sharkfin that's usually the best course of action. Some cars may bark at you, but mine just says it can't detect GPS if I attempt to use it (which I never use anyway).

culi2• 8 months ago

For anyone else confused, Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs). Automotive context

ranger_danger2• 8 months ago

Can't you just turn off "Connected Services" in the menu?

I have been canceling that stupid warning message it presents when leaving it off, every day for several years now.

jimnotgym3• 8 months ago

Here is something else you can do about it. By an older low mileage car. If we all did that the manufacturers would change tack soon enough

closewith7• 8 months ago

I did do this, but I also want a reasonable modern and safe car and in the EU, since 2018, that means a car with eCall. I have a 2017 that I will keep going as long as is economical, but after that, it will be nearly impossible to avoid these systems.

ryandrake4• 8 months ago

The idea that a 20 year old car is unsafe is auto industry FUD. Yes, there have been great safety advances since the 1970s and 1980s. They've kind of tapered off though. I would absolutely trust my family's lives in any year 2000+ vehicle.

egorfine• 8 months ago

that means a car with eCall

It can be removed/disabled. Given that we're talking about a used car, the warranty being void is not a problem either.

Sharlin• 8 months ago

Not driving seems to have worked pretty well thus far.

SilverElfin• 8 months ago

The problem is a lot of the features of these cars require you to opt into giving your privacy away. And when you’re shopping it’s not clear where that line is.

thepasswordapp• 8 months ago

The car data collection story is concerning, but it's part of a broader pattern: credentials and personal data are scattered across dozens of services we interact with daily.

The automotive example shows how even "non-tech" products now collect and transmit data. Each service creates another attack surface, another set of credentials to manage, another potential breach vector.

What's frustrating is that breach response still falls on individuals. When one of these services gets compromised, it's users who have to scramble to change passwords across potentially hundreds of connected accounts. The "change your password" advice is good but wildly impractical at scale.

jimnotgym3• 8 months ago

Is all of this data collection from the driving aids actually us doing R&D for their autonomous car projects?

toofy• 8 months ago

people participating as beta testers with no way to opt out is absolutely the norm now.

from video games to software to “self-driving” cars, we’re all unpaid beta testers for unfinished and often unsafe products.

exhilaration• 8 months ago

Disabling the hardware can be really hard, my 2025 Toyota Sienna is always connected. You can't just pull a fuse or rip out an antenna, I have to take the entire dashboard apart to reach the Data Communication Module (DCM) module. If anyone's curious what that looks like, it's a little bit easier on the Toyota Tacoma, here are some pictures of the process: https://www.tacoma4g.com/forum/threads/disabling-dcm-telemat...

It's complex enough that I haven't done it yet in my Sienna, but I plan to!

ProllyInfamous2• 8 months ago

On a 2021 Camry there is an below-dash fuse labeled "DCM" which you can remove (and it does disable OnStar/telemetry, but not sat.radio[0]) — it also disables one of the speakers (used for phone calls), which there is a bypass to resolve (but it still requires removing infotainment, so at that point just unplug it there.?!).

[0] It was my understanding that, like GPS-receivers, Sirius/XM was one-way streaming, only..?

willis936• 8 months ago

There are GPS antennas that land on that DCM and the data from that is forwarded over carplay/android auto. Phones fall back to their onboard GPS but it's a much worse experience than we're accustomed to. If you share the car with someone expect complaints. Pulling the cell antenna(s) is the most elegant solution. People shouldn't be afraid of a little work.

kwoff• 8 months ago

https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/#:~:text=Declining,analysi... so you apparently have to opt-out of consenting to them tracking you...

tguvot• 8 months ago

There is spying and there is spying

Back in august IDF banned Chinese cars from entering bases

https://www.jns.org/report-idf-bans-chinese-cars-from-bases-...

And now banned then from used by officers

https://securityboulevard.com/2025/11/why-israel-just-banned...

I wonder what IDF knows

gogusrl• 8 months ago

Tesla cars to be banned from Chinese government buildings amid security fears.

I wonder what China knows :)

https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-vehicles-to-face-entry-b...

dzhiurgis• 8 months ago

At consumer level - Tesla has been leader here for many years.

vel0city2• 8 months ago

I went to Carvana to get some idea on what my car might be worth. I gave them the license plate, and it gave me a questionnaire about specific trim and options along with asking about the current mileage. I couldn't remember the exact figure so I guessed rounded to the thousand. The app complained and wouldn't take it as they knew the mileage which was some 150ish miles more. Apparently my car has reported the mileage last time I drive it, which has been about an hour before.

Carvana knew exactly how many miles I had driven within an hour of me driving my car.

humanrebar• 8 months ago

So why did they have you fill in that field then?

bitwize• 8 months ago

For the same reason the IRS makes you fill out how much you made last year. They know—they know to the penny. But making you fill it out is a humiliation exercise so they can "catch you out" and intimidate you.

Well in the case of the IRS, that, and you know, Intuit.

bmitch3020• 8 months ago

I'd like to see a website that ranks vehicles by make and model. That would influence shopping behaviors, and consumers would influence manufacturer behaviors.

calvinmorrison4• 8 months ago

nothing. And banning ALPR wont fix anything either. All cars have 4 unique serial numbers broadcast via radio at all times via the TPMS system. you don't even need a camera, just a radio receiver.

1shooner• 8 months ago

banning ALPR wont fix anything either.

Ideally the implementation would be immaterial to a ban. The ban (or more likely first, warrant requirement similar to cell data) would be on the tracking database, not the details of how the tracking was accomplished.

ErroneousBosh3• 8 months ago

All cars have 4 unique serial numbers broadcast via radio at all times via the TPMS system.

Mine doesn't.

calvinmorrison4• 8 months ago

do you have some sort of indirect tire pressure checking like wheel speed?

jeroenhd12• 8 months ago

TPMS doesn't need to be unencrypted like that, although many car manufacturers do like to save a buck.

If you get a car old enough, you won't need to worry about TPMS (but that car will not have been tested against recent crash test scenarios).

calvinmorrison4• 8 months ago

TPMS is over the air, each sesnor has a 32 bit unique ID. you have 4 per car... its easy to identify

fh973• 8 months ago

Checked how to receive those with SDR. Turns out they are very low power and you need to basically touch the tire. Also the transmit in minute intervals. Bit exactly a a smoking gun in terms of mass surveillance.

EvanAnderson• 7 months ago

I have an RTL-SDR rig with the stock tiny omni antenna in a second story of a building adjacent a public parking lot. I'm using rtl433 and I am able to reliably pick up TPMS from the lot. I've never done any testing to see what the metes and bounds of my reception are, but it's definitely not touching the tire. My rig is at least 30 feet away from the closest parking spot.

jmward01• 8 months ago

I won't mince words. This is criminal and should be dealt with that way. It is obvious I don't want my information collected and sold. I make it clear every reasonable chance I get. This goes beyond abuse of my privacy, this is digital assault and the company officers that allowed these 'features' should be thrown in jail for it.

metalman• 8 months ago

so ya!

My house is fairly close((125') to a rural "highway", and only internet here is mobile data that my phone shares with other devices and mornings(anytime) my older desktop with 2.5 ghz wifi gets bumped off with the passing of every car that has glaring supper white headlights,but, not the ones running yellow incandecents, whatever rf signal is comming of these things must be barely, or completly illegal, and could obviously be tracked in any number of ways, so not so much bieng spied on, as just flat out trasmitting everything you do in ridiculously fine grained detail.

daft_pink2• 8 months ago

The problem is that with Flock, you’re basically being tracked incessantly anyways, so who cares if the automaker also does it?

malwrar• 8 months ago

We need to resist this stuff or else there will be Flock, stalker cars, and some other new nightmare they excuse by saying “well we’re already watching…”. Can’t let ourselves accept this is normal!

daft_pink2• 8 months ago

How do you resist automated license plate readers? Not having license plates doesn't seem practical.

sys_64738• 8 months ago

That's the slippery slope of shrugging your shoulders.

constantcrying• 8 months ago

How do you write an article about this and not mention the GDPR or EU privacy laws?

"It’s hard to figure out exactly how much data a modern car is collecting on you"

You are a globally operating news agency. You can absolutely get some GDPR requests in and look at it. What kind of reporting is this? "We don"t know, but we also have not tried the one way which forces companies to answer this question".

BMW is a German company, just ask them for the information they have on you and they are forced to give it to you.

jeroenhd12• 8 months ago

Mozilla's concentrated efforts took a while, they're right that it's hard to figure out exactly what car manufacturers are doing. Unless you're willing to sue a bunch of them, plain GDPR requests won't be enough to get this information. Companies will happily lie or declare information collected as "non-personal" or "trade secrets" and if they're smart enough about the way they process their data they can probably convince a judge that the end result isn't personal enough that exposing their trade secrets weighs up against the GDPR.

There's no way even a large news corporation is going to buy every model car from every brand that comes out in a year to get the legal rights to demand data, let alone pursue these data requests in court. Renting cars may be easier, but then your contract is with the rental company and they're responsible for getting you the information you require, and after the first three PII requests you're not going to be renting from them any time soon.

I'm not saying they couldn't do a deeper dive with more detailed research, but it's not an easy task to evaluate an industry like this. All they'll be able to produce is general statements about a limited set of car models that'll quickly be outdated once the next software update comes out.

hbarka4• 8 months ago

I have an electric car and if I want to remotely turn on charging, it won’t allow me unless the full data sharing option is enabled. Full data as in your driving data like a black box logger. I then have to go in the car, enable it, then I can remotely turn on charging. I have to remember to opt-out again later. Ironic I know because I can turn on charging from within the cabin without having to enable any of the data collection. What an inconvenient experience.

mixmastamyk2• 8 months ago

What does "remotely turn on charging" mean? Doesn't charge when you plug in?

hbarka4• 8 months ago

There are a few options. You can plug it in your garage and charging can automatically begin due to a set schedule, like after midnight, or you can initiate it on demand using the cabin controls or using your iPhone as a remote.

thrtythreeforty• 8 months ago

Which car is this?

hbarka4• 8 months ago

Ford

mk_stjames• 8 months ago

So you're telling me that simply walking out to the car and hitting a button inside the car is just too much of an "inconvenient experience"?

You know we used to have to drive the car... sometimes many miles... to a station, get out, and fill it up with a liquid fuel that costs many times more, and then drive home...

Seriously now- The perceived 'inconvenience' you have is the reason that so many of these connected features are being pushed and then the because the ability is there the business types can't resist the data gathering that became possible because of all the antennas, etc.

hbarka4• 8 months ago

But you’re also using this technological convenience to reply to me. You know we used to have pen and paper and horses.

jwr• 8 months ago

Amazingly but perhaps not surprisingly, cars in the EU do similar amounts of spying on you, but the EU is silent. Car manufacturers pretty much run the EU.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos• 8 months ago

Because the government wants the tracking. They want your car broadcasting its position.

J_Shelby_J• 8 months ago

I wonder what the extremely rich do to get a car that isn’t a security risk? I’ve heard you can throw money at high end car dealerships to disable spying, but I wonder what the internal process is.

everdrive4• 8 months ago

I haven't heard this. Do you have any examples?

mixmastamyk2• 8 months ago

This will probably be a thing, but it's not clear that folks are cognizant of the risks yet.

drnick110• 8 months ago

It's easier than that, you can remove the cellular modem. Dealers won't generally accept to make this mod, but any independent shop should be able to. There are also plenty of videos on YT to DIY.

MrDrMcCoy6• 8 months ago

I some months back called every independent EV mechanic I could find a listing for in my state to see if they would help me disable the cellular modem of any of the models I was interested in buying, and they mostly told me either that they couldn't or wouldn't. One of the more polite shops I got in touch with explained that many models don't have a separate board that can be disabled anymore, or otherwise have more things on the board that need to be talking on the CAN bus for other, actually important parts of the car to function. As such, I still have my old car.

Since then, I've learned about the 50ohm dummy antennas you can buy. I might try that if my car dies before an AWD/4WD Slate truck becomes an option, and also if my living situation can accommodate charging.

nimbius• 8 months ago

as a professional diesel mechanic for a small chain of midwest shops, this "telematics" feature is on long-haul trucks as well as tractors (john deer is notorious for using it to send mail marketing about services.)

generally its not hard to disable.

- identify the telematics module in your car - pull the fuse (not always an option, sometimes this disables bluetooth)

- alternatively: identify the 1-2 SMC connectors on the telematics device. this is the LTE and low/alt channel for the cellular communications. disconnect these 1-2 connectors and connect the ports instead to a 50 ohm terminator. the vehicle will simply continue to collect data but never be able to send it anywhere. the system will assume it just cant find a tower.

m4635• 8 months ago

I tried this with a wifi setup on a car charger. I connected a 50-ohm dummy load in place of the antenna using the mmcx connector.

It didn't work - there was an on-module antenna that it switched to. Might not have worked as well, but it did work and the wifi access point still showed up.

On the other hand, some cars have a self-contained telematics module like you said and you can just unpower the whole thing.

I remember looking at a ford owners manual for a 2019. The fusebox section had a fuse with description "Telematics control unit - modem." I assume you can just pull that fuse.

vitaflo5• 8 months ago

Connecting to a dummy load is a pretty good idea I hadn't thought of (usually I just disconnect the cellular module).

quasse• 8 months ago

The Toyota community has been far down that road with the DCM module in the new gen cars and found that the car still managed to get updates out to Toyota even with 50 ohm terminating resistors in the antenna connectors: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/simpler-solution-for-dis... (see the posts by user "Disgruntled Scientist").

Unfortunately simply cutting power to the telematics module also disables the in-car microphone for handfree calling. Fully disabling telematics involves making a bypass harness that re-routes the microphone and speaker signals past the disabled DCM module.

pfp• 8 months ago

I thought about getting a traditional navigator to avoid even relying on phone navigation.

Well, of course all the Garmins and Tomtoms available now have "built-in wifi for updates" and often BT for phone notifications too. Sure, I could just not configure either but what if I want a navigator _without any radios_ and with controlled updates via SD card.

Maybe a dedicated Android phone in the car with offline OpenStreetMaps installed and airplane mode on is more realistic. Or some old 2nd hand navi that's still updateable.

drnick110• 8 months ago

You could use a GrapheneOS phone without SIM and OSMand for that.

CommenterPerson• 8 months ago

I use an older Garmin, purchased from ebay. Works fine, updated maps via a laptop recently. Needed an extra SD cards for space.

rconti3• 8 months ago

I think it's wild that people spend their own money to surveil themselves every second they're near their car. Maybe I've seen too much lawyering on TV and in movies, but if I'm in a collision with you, I'm definitely asking the cops to pull the SD card from your dashcam.

Whenever I point out I think this self-surveillance is crazy, the response ends up sounding something like "oh, no big, if I think I did something wrong I'll just hide the evidence and lie to the police and say it doesn't work", which sure doesn't sit right with me.

caconym_3• 8 months ago

Why do you think potentially self-incriminating self-surveillance is "crazy" when you also think lying to the cops and other involved parties about what happened is bad? If you believe it's important to tell the truth in these situations, you should have no problem providing your own recordings of a collision, regardless of who is at fault.

Or is your point just about the cost of the dashcam being "crazy"? In that case, hypothetically, what if your insurance company cut you a check to buy a dashcam of your own choice and install it on your car?

stavros5• 8 months ago

I think they're saying "I don't want to self-incriminate so I don't want to put myself in a situation where I have to lie". I'm not sure it's entirely consistent, but I also don't think it's entirely inconsistent.

smeej• 8 months ago

I found the vehicleprivacyreport.com site awfully misleading. The "Vehicle Privacy Label" only lists what the manufacturer's current policies are, not what applies to my vehicle. It makes it seem like Toyota is somehow remotely collecting and sharings tons of information about my...2007 Prius. But this car came out in 2006, well before people assumed easy internet connectivity everywhere. Shy of having physical access to my vehicle, they can't read anything, but it's not easy to find that explanation on the site.

kdazzle• 8 months ago

I worked on the data platform at a smaller car co, and there were tight controls around getting access to precise geo data, and there were strong privacy advocates at higher levels. Wasn’t a perfect system, but “spying” would be far from what I saw

meisel• 8 months ago

It wouldn’t be surprising if cars also record audio of conversations to use for ad targeting. It has already been conclusively shown that TV companies have done this.

MrDrMcCoy6• 8 months ago

IIRC, Nissan even has a clause in their privacy policy for selling information about passengers having sex. Pretty hard to collect that without audio data.

tavavex10• 8 months ago

It has already been conclusively shown that TV companies have done this.

Can you elaborate? I don't think I've ever heard of this. When did it happen?

elzbardico7• 8 months ago

Cars, your TV, your phone, everything is fucking spying on you. At this moment I am more interested in how I generate a tsunami of more data about me to the powers that be to drown them in a deluge of irrelevant bits.

drnick110• 8 months ago

Yes, and that's very sad. However the solutions are pretty obvious:

Car -> unplug the cellular modem (more or less easy)

TV -> used as dumb monitor with a Linux HTPC

Phone -> GrapheneOS

PC -> Linux

Social media -> /dev/null

Email/DNS/cloud -> my own

The real issue is that most people are not aware of these issues and may even (unintentionally) compromise your own privacy by posting information or pictures of you to Facebook or other similar places.

rglynn2• 8 months ago

Social media -> /dev/null

That made me chuckle, absolutely right though!

maxerickson• 8 months ago

For most people, it's all irrelevant.

I'm surprised how many people think that keeping a low profile will matter in a society that attacks people for things you could discover from vehicle position data. In that society, you'll get attacked if someone wants to do it and they'll manufacture the pretext.

rglynn2• 8 months ago

I think the attack vector most are considering are going to be government-sourced mass-targeting of individuals based on data triggers rather than any particular interest in the individual. The current example being many of the 12,000 annual arrests in the UK for online speech, many based on private messages. For many of those cases, these were private individuals in whom the government had no prior interest.

It's not difficult to imagine something like pandemic restrictions, where a digitally-enabled government could fine/arrest people based on location data, either because they travelled outside an allowed area or into a restricted one. Or they have data showing they were in close-proximity with too many people etc etc.

ericmay6• 8 months ago

Nothing you can realistically do about it. In America car ownership for most people is mandatory. It’s unfortunate we don’t have alternatives if you disagree with car manufacturers extra “features”.

drnick110• 8 months ago

The alternative is to be aware of this abuse and unplug the cellular modem. It requires more or less effort depending on the car, but it can and should be done.

ericmay6• 8 months ago

It’s not a good alternative though because it puts you into a losing competition with the manufacturers. Take out the cellular modem? Next one requires connectivity to drive the car and so forth.

You could “ban” it, but the amount of effort required to raise public awareness for that and actually have our dickhead representatives due things like that is basically the same amount of effort, perhaps more, as building better cities and transportation modes.

We build and subsidize highways, we could do the same with other methods of transportation and have competition instead of big gubmint cars.

abdullahkhalids• 8 months ago

On the other hand, it is not mandatory to vote for politicians who continue to make our cities car centric.

You are not doing anything wrong if you are forced into buying a car due to the circumstances of your living. But voting to continue that makes your culpable.

ycomb-acct• 8 months ago

So your plan would be to get rid of cars? Wow it's almost like government regulation imposed to dissuade people from free travel via personal automobiles through a thorough enshitification is working in the direction of their intent.

You mean they're actually asking for 15 minute cities? Yes sir, they are. Very good.

otterley• 8 months ago

We could lobby together for new federal and state laws to prohibit this kind of tracking without the affirmative consent of the purchaser—or, at the very least, make opt-out as easy as sending an email.

m4635• 8 months ago

The first thing drivers should do is be aware of what data their car is collecting
You can opt out

lol

this makes it seem so simple.

I think

- you will never be aware of what data is collected - they want to collect more data and never disclose it

- you will never be able to opt-out. Even if you disconnect from cellular, at service time they will just download what is there.

- car manufacturers will use any and all data to their benefit

You know, here's an interesting story I remember reading:

I will give you a story - buddy owns a shop - buys new M5 - he went out joyriding - warped a rotor - he said it was not from him so he tried a warranty service - BMW printed a page that his car recorded. It had snapped a pic of his face and sent all the data on speed, location, etc every bit of data you can think of to the dealer and his insurance company. He sold the car. That was years ago. Ask any custom tuner today if they can touch a 22 BMW. Nope. It will disable the car if you try and get into the CPU to tune it. This is where the industry is heading

from: https://www.fordtremor.com/threads/disabling-the-modem-pulli...

The_President• 8 months ago

Similar story with a user's earlier Model S - they used to drive it like they were being chased by the cops, and so when it was time to swap the degraded battery under warranty, (as they said) "a nerd" came out of the back of the service center "with a bunch of paperwork from the database" and Tesla denied the claim.

Tylast• 8 months ago

I don't disagree with you on BMW's data collection capabilities. However, I've read about 2023s being tuned. It's also widely reported that BMW encrypted many of the computers starting in 2024.

This past September, BMW disabled 3rd party access (think Home Assistant) to vehicle data. There are only 2 paid 3rd party companies allowed. 2+ years of me using HA (with some awesome automations) was terminated. I was willing to let them use my data as long as I could too, but now I don't even have access to my own data!

blackjack_• 8 months ago

I ripped the wifi / onstar and gps antennas out of my 2020 Chevy Bolt the day after I bought it. Took me a couple of hours since the access was awful, but that's one time pain. No issues since, and I have a phone I use to drive the head unit so there was no need for those antennas to even exist.

m4635• 8 months ago

I tried this once.

I got a tesla home charger and it had a unnecessary wifi AP that kept showing up in my house. So I figured, I would stop this.

Opened it up, and disconnected the wifi antenna mmcx connector.

Nope, seemed when unplugged, it would switch to an onboard antenna for the wifi module.

so I reconnected a dummy load antenna to the wifi module.

and it still used the onboard antenna.

at that point, I gave up.

I think there might have been a possibility of downgrading the firmware to an older version that could disable wifi, but I didn't try to find it.

I believe this kind of thing happens with onboard cellular, wifi and bt. They are more resilient to degraded or disconnected antennas than you think.

mistercheph• 8 months ago

don't buy a modern car

ris• 8 months ago

The only company that appear to be taking a different tack on this are https://www.slate.auto

Anyone know of any others?

MrDrMcCoy6• 8 months ago

Nope, which is why I plan to get them as soon as AWD/4WD becomes an option.

tlubinski• 8 months ago

The CCC had a nice talk last year about the data VW collects and what can be learned from it (all the data was unencrypted accessible): https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-vo...

(unfortunately it's in German - but there is an english live translation available)

AlexCoventry2• 8 months ago

Interestingly I can't get ChatGPT to help me find a video showing me how to disable the cellular modem on my Subaru 2024 Crosstrek. Time to do some old-fashioned research, I guess...

https://chatgpt.com/share/692cde57-0930-800e-b45f-7a41ca5c8e...

jacquesm2• 8 months ago

Who cares about what ChatGPT can't do? It can't make me a sandwich either.

AlexCoventry2• 8 months ago

I've found it extremely useful for this kind of research in general.

effnorwood• 8 months ago

Remove the modem

MrDrMcCoy6• 8 months ago

Not always possible, depending on model, skill level, and/or availability of a mechanic that's willing to try. My own search for a mechanic to mod any of the cars I was looking at buying was fruitless and left me with the decision to hold onto my gas guzzler for a while longer.

jacquesm2• 8 months ago

You can simply not drive a modern car.

Lapsa• 8 months ago

modern tech enables an actual mind reading - while you bicker around about vehicle telematics and bluetooth beacon signals

1vuio0pswjnm7• 8 months ago

It's rather surprising/disappointing that "advice" like this makes no mention of how the automobile gains internet access

Does it (a) have it's own SIM card, (b) piggyback on driver/passenger/other vehicle SIM cards, (c) opportunistically connect to free wifi APs, etc.

Perhaps the surveillance data is only transmitted to the mothership when the automobile is being "serviced"

The automobile OS may be like the other corporate OS, e.g., iOS, iPadOS, Android, etc., in that there is no possible configuration or combination of user settings that does not allow data collection and surveillance for unlimited commercial purposes

Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

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