I think car privacy isn’t talked about amongst any privacy enthusiasts online ever, and it apparently is one of the biggest data collectors out there. For someone like me who values electric cars for there affordability and environmental reasons, but still want physical car buttons and control over my data, how would I go about this?
Insist on one that doesn’t have all that crap in it
On the technological side of things, you’re pretty much fucked no matter what. Virtually all car companies now have proprietary app integrations, partnerships with Google and Apple, and other anti-privacy features.
Some practical things you can do-
Opt out of as much data collection and sharing as you can. Read the manual and menu dive to disable optional features you don’t need.
If you finance or lease from the dealer, there are likely additional data disclosures and third party sharing that you can opt out of. Read all the paperwork when you sign your purchase or lease documents. In my case I had to literally fill out and mail something in (they don’t want it to be easy to opt-out because they make money from sharing the data with third parties).
With how expensive current cars are I don’t know how they manage to get away with this.
Consumer reports recently added a privacy rating to their car ratings. I glanced at it a little last year. I think it rated if you could opt out and the reach of the sharing.
I do have to say that I’m generally disappointed with the discussion on this topic every tine it comes up. The majority of responses go contrast to the question. “Don’t buy a car” or “fix up a junker” are generally not helpful if you’ve already decided that your top priority is to have a newer car. Another thread actually recommended to move to another country where you could walk everywhere. Seriously.
Most often a car purchase is a complex decision making process where you need to weigh multiple, often conflicting priorities where privacy is only one aspect. I get the impression that if people followed the advice of the majority of these comments, they’d be living in a tent off grid, hunting for food to stay alive, but living their privacy dream.
So, the options I see here are:
- Buying an older vehicle
- Disconnecting the modem and dealing with the car potentially refusing to work after a period of time or potentially uploading locally saved data when taken for service
- Spending a lot of time and money to convert an old ICE car to an EV and dealing with a janky EV that probably has a limited range under 100 miles
None of these are great options.
what’s wrong with 2015 or older with low mileage?
it’s hard to get a reliable 10 year old car with low milage… harder every year until it will be impossible sooner than later
I just bought one today because of that. they’re just getting older the longer I wait, if I don’t need it right now, I might as well buy it so that it’s not getting rustier being driven by someone else
Toyota, Honda, or Mazda are good bets.
Nothing; I’m currently driving cars even older than that. It’s just that as time goes on, it’s going to be harder and harder to find.
That option becomes a more remote opportunity with each passing year as stock diminishes so trying to find a long-term solution now makes sense.
Volkswagen (VW) had a massive scandal that showed how dangerous this is. By leaking driving behaviour, VW leaked hidden military bases, politicians likely visiting prostitutes and more. Lucky for them ethical hackers (CCC) found that and did not use the data.
Lucky for them ethical hackers (CCC) found that and did not use the data.
In other words “ethical hackers” wasted a great opportunity to give shithead politicians a taste of their own venom. Very frustrating.
Yea, CCC actually has a huge problem by being too ethical. Apparently they had cases were the data protection authority did not force companies to disclose the leak because access by CCC does not constitute access by a malicious third party; absolutely bonkers. Just because the malicious party didn’t open their mouth doesn’t mean they haven’t accessed the data, you pigeon.
Lucky for them ethical hackers (CCC) found that and did not use the data.
I think the most effective way to ensure privacy is to find data mined on anti-privacy politicians and release all of it to the public.
I wish I knew how.
Buy a bike 😅
I’ve got like 8 but that doesn’t do everything I need it to
Works, but it definitely is not a solution for everyone. There are people who live in areas where it is too far to ride on a bike (and slow) and using public transport takes 2-3 times longer than by car. Especially some areas near cities.
Move then buy a bike.
instructions unclear. moved to the suburbs and bought a rolling coal lifted truck
What does this have to do with the computer application software Firefox? Mozilla continues to loose the point of the company with this crap. Are they trying to hide the fact that shoved unneeded AI and yet more unwanted file support into the latest version?
the mozilla foundation is also a non-profit that studies how much privacy certain things have. I’m perfectly fine with this.
They only have money to do that because of their browser, yet they keep laying off people from their browser division.
You’re fucked. Best you can do is ride a bike when possible, and keep driving old cars from the mid-2000s or earlier when necessary.
Lotta early 2010s models are also telemetry free but have newer safety systems and probably less miles on them.
Well, my mom’s 2014 golf mk7 doesn’t have telematics. Just look at the specs and buy a car based on it.
Just don’t connect it to the internet. The radio and Bluetooth do not need an internet connection to work and you can use your phone for maps and music streaming.
Pretty sure many of the cars sold now have a SIM card or something similar which the manufacturer pays for up front. I don’t think it takes much for them to ping periodically with the information they’d like to track and this ensures they get the data.
Still, don’t connect your car to the Internet, as that could give them way more data but I doubt that that doing that alone will completely stop the tracking.
Edit: typo
Good starting point would be looking up forum or blog posts from people who have disconnected the modem/TCU on a particular EV model. No self-interested auto manufacturer (all of them) would intentionally provide an option in the user interface to take the telemetry system offline. Take note of any side-effects they report, if it needs to be reconnected for inspections, and if there’s any gotchas between software and hardware revisions.
Ah, yes, here come the “just use your old car because EVs are worse for the environment than the Exxon Valdez or something” posts
That is a myth thoroughly debunked by just a little bit of research and data collection into the making and driving of EVs, as that assumption ran off an old study that used guesstimated worst-case scenario numbers and don’t really reflect what the actual numbers are.
If you want to avoid being tracked, you will have to disconnect the data modem somehow - it is part of your radio antenna. If it gets no power, it gets no connection. Either disconnect from the telematics unit, or at the antenna. Also, you can disconnect your telematics unit itself - the “black box” that lives under the dash and records your driving. Some aftermarket makers have “dummy plug” connectors which will trick the car into thinking it is connected. These are often used with aftermarket head units.
Beware that some cars are tracked by your financial lender, and they don’t like it when this happens. Some other cars actually have to be cloud connected once in a while or they stop working - which is the worst thing modern cars can do.
Cars are the problem. I am agnostic to whether the car is powered by steam, diesel, gasoline, or electricity. Tail-pipe emissions are a very small part of the overall pollution from a car.
Prove it’s a myth. I find it really hard to believe me going and purchasing a new car is better then using an already existing car. Manufacturing has a big cost for cars.
Rough math involved: production of a new EV results in between 8-15 tonnes of CO2 emissions, depending on the size of the batteries and vehicle trim.
But let’s aim for somewhere in the middle and take ~12 tonnes as a yardstick.
~12 tonnes of CO2 emissions equates to roughly 1,350 gallons of fuel.
Depending of fuel efficiency, this would equate to between 20k~45k miles.
Feel free to double-check my math in case I did anything wrong, but it does validate that most of these „facts” around EVs are likely FUD spread by fossil fuel aligned sources.
ETA: initially forgot to include CO2 emissions from electricity generation - but this varies wildly based on source (nuclear, hydro & renewables at 0 etc.)
I find this a bit misleasing, especially when (in the uk) electricity is only ~50% renewables apparently.
https://www.zemo.org.uk/assets/workingdocuments/MC-P-11-15a Lifecycle emissions report.pdf
For example, a typical medium sized family car will create around 24 tonnes of CO2 during its life cycle, while an electric vehicle (EV) will produce around 18 tonnes over its life. For a battery EV, 46% of its total carbon footprint is generated at the factory.
So EVs are a small improvement. Since I enjoy older cars and my privacy a lot more, I’m gonna keep enjoying them and not let manafacturers ram EVs down my throat, especially when a lot of them are hideous SUVs.
By “tonnes”, do you mean 2,000lb or 1,000kg? In an engineering context, “ton” is the former and “tonne” is the latter.
“Tonne” is also synonymous with “long ton” (dur to converting to 2204.6lb), as well as “metric ton”.
Please use metric for anything scientific
Especially wrt. modern gas-fuelled cars for the typical driver as EV prices are artificially jacked up in many Western countries.
Just to point out that you made the initial argument and commented a view without evidence. Now you ask someone who disagrees to give evidence?
OP didn’t ask about EVs, they asked about modern cars.
Well, actually… Read the post again ;)
- Remove the modem, sometimes called the TCU.
- Buy a Slate truck. It has no connectivity.
E: if you have the disposable funds or the skills you can do an EV conversion.
The sad thing is you paid to get a car with a TCU, then paid a mechnic to remove it. Assuming you’re not a mechnic/hobbist yourself.
It’s good that Mozilla is shaming car companies and shining a spotlight on the issue. Journalists need to ask about tracking and privacy when a new car model comes out. Buyer should ask sellers the same.
no, I paid to get a car without that telemetry, as it would be part of the condition of sale
people don’t need to just accept what the dealer says. they can tell them to fuck off and go buy somewhere else
I find myself often paying more for less these days. The Slate truck isn’t really a great deal either when comparing to something like the new Chevy Equinox EV.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it kept all the data internally and then published it to their servers when you go for to a service center or do maintenance.
“Bezos-backed”? There has to be a catch somewhere.
Keeping an eye on it since no other company is offering a similar lack of connectivity, but also not going to be surprised if it doesn’t deliver on its promises.
The catch is it’ll be enshittified as soon as it can.
Alternatively, if you can’t remove the modem, find and remove the antenna. And if you can’t remove the antenna try and surround it with a metal, like aluminum foil.
Gladly, it will be years before I can afford a car that doesn’t respect my privacy.
Buy an older used ICE and have it converted to electric.
I don’t really care about car privacy myself.
Where I drive to isn’t really a secret, social events are organized on Discord. And if driving recklessly raises my insurance premiums then that’s deserved. I wouldn’t risk something as expensive as a car with privacy hacks.
“I’ve got nothing to hide”
You should, privacy is a human right which is being stripped away from us.
You’re basically saying I don’t really care about my human rights.
Without privacy, you’re one step closer to an authoritan regime, where mass surveillance helps prevent an uprising of the people against it.
E.g. Russia, where you accidentally slit your throat while shaving when you go against Putin.
Then you’re lacking in imagination.
Similar data have outed people’s pregnancies, relationships and locations, which has been used to let people be stalked and even murdered.
Car data can be sold and amalgamated to create a very precise profile of you, available to be purchased by anyone. Anyone with about $100 can purchase access to your daily/weekly schedule, including physical locations, and can easily steal your identity, if not rob or murder you.
Also, foreign propaganda can similarly profile you and hyper target influence campaigns.
To complement the above reply, although you paid a lot for the car, you’re paying even more daily, giving many away to very nasty companies that will turn your investment against you to increase their profit. Your data will be sold and you’re donating money to billionaires.
Is that what you want? Are you happy to have ads on a windows install you already paid, for example?
Because that’s what you’re doing. If you got a massive discount on account of the daily extra profit you’ll give them I would understand. But if not, why be so charitable to people who don’t deserve it?
I bought glasses recently and, like the dork I am, loudly complained about trying to find a pair that didn’t have advertisements in the form of logos on the arms. Since they aren’t discounted as compensation for fluffing their marketing department, and all that.
Clerk said ‘yeah they actually charge more for the stupid name’ and shoppers laughed so people mostly know but comply. The supply chain is perverse, ok. Life is full of struggle so the small ones slide.
