Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here:

I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc.

Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the fields in the request was current mileage. I entered an estimate like 75000 miles. On form submission, that field failed validation with red subtext along the lines of 'this is less than the last reported mileage of 75345, reported <5 or so days prior>'. Checking my odometer and looking at my past few days' trips, that was indeed accurate.

The car hadn't been to a shop or out of my possession in weeks, so I can only assume the telemetry was still dialing home and selling to third parties despite my best efforts to disable it.

> Privacy NoticeWe and our 179 partners store and access personal data.

Fair to say the verge don't really care about data being collected and sold they just want the clicks

I'd like to point out that the CA assembly has passed AB-1542 and it is likely going to be signed by the governor this week. This would make the sale and sharing of "sensitive" personal information illegal, and one of the sensitive personal categories is geolocation data that can map an individual to within a 1850-ft radius.

In my understanding, this pretty much makes this type of driver data illegal to sell or share. CalPrivacy's enforcement division has their eye on connected car manufacturers already, so we'll see what they do with that.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.x...

It's a complete shadow economy, users don't want it and mostly don't know it. But sometimes it surfaces, ie we had a public gathering in my village about the plans to restructure one of our main streets, since people don't feel safe walking an biking there naturally we want it 1 way or 30 km/u. In response rhe person from the municipality whipped up some graphs with speed profiles along the street as it is now. Naturally I ask how they get that data and he says "you can just order it online, I think from Google and Apple originally? Oh, yeah sometimes you can identify things, like a cop once speeded along this road and he could see his datapoint (a far outlier)!" Nobody saw any problem with this. And it's such a small step away from direct actions based on this data (although people would probably take action themselves the moment they understand there are direct downsides for them.)

I work in grid management, and the Telemetry from EVs is a valuable data stream for steerable demand on the grid.

The only data we need is if you’re at home and the charging metrics /w commands.

But the amount of unnecessary data that is available, is a real privacy concern.

How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective? Can I wrap the comms in a Faraday cage?

Obviously it would be better to have this action be illegal. But with legal privacy protections eroding in the US and other countries, it seems prudent to have a better understanding of the systems involved in the immoral surveillance.

Two different things are getting called "car data" here.

Facts about the car: VIN, spec, recall status, odometer. Attested by someone other than the owner. Outlives every owner and the owner is the last to have it, if at all.

Facts about the driver: speed, location, timestamp. Thats what GM sold, the fix is to not collect it but OEMs seem to take 'anonymization' approach.

The DRIVER act treats both as the same which is why it fails to fix anything. The second needs a ban. The first needs the opposite - especially as we take the driver out of the vehicle - an authoritative record of the vehicle. How do we expect AVs to have adoption when the only safety certification is the company's press release?

That‘ll happen when you don‘t have meaningful data protection laws.

In my GM car I have the wonderful opportunity to pull the OnStar fuse and disable all cellular connectivity. However, I am concerned the telematics information are stored in long term storage and if I have to reconnect the fuse, all my driving will be batch uploaded. I hope not!! And the GPS still works. Maybe I can find some dummy loads as well or the antennae.

It's still better than other modern cars though? I think.

Terms of use to even read the article:

> third-party partners process information about you and how you use our services, including clicks and screen recordings, using first and third-party cookies, pixels, and similar technologies

Apparently Rivians can be prevented from doing this:

Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967786

I notice that not one comment here, nor the article, notes that this doesn't happen with a Tesla.

If you'd like to buy this data, go talk to the guys over at Inrx. They will happily give you a product demo showing point to point trips recorded by connected onstar or whatever corresponding manf connected car service.

The "genie out of the bottle" argument has been used in the ongoing AI-or-no-AI, we're-so-cooked/we're-so-back debate among software engineers, something like: you can't undo technological advances nor would you want to, so best cope with this new reality.

And there are technological "advances" I would very much like to undo. One of them being social media, another being modern cars. Automobiles peaked when they were purely mechanical. An average American high schooler could understand all its systems, and many did. When they started becoming LANs on wheels beginning in the 90s, they became necessary millstones around their owners' necks, and these days they're as inscrutable as a smartphone, just as user-hostile, and just as tethered to vendor services. I think my father was speaking from a place of wisdom when he groused about computers in automobiles.

And no, EVs are actually simpler than ICE engines, their drivetrain being basically a battery, a set of electric motors, and maybe some variable resistors to control speed. An EV that is purely electromechanical and operable via analog controls would be a godsend, but it's not going to happen under current regulatory environments.

How to stop this on Subaru ?

My car is from 2017, so thankfully it's not.

Like I've said here before: we need to push for legislation that bans the sale of consumer data collected by websites and manufacturers to third-parties.

We need a solution, not a Band-Aid like the "Freedom Car Act." I believe that legislators are deliberately coming up with legislation that mildly hinders, but in no way resolves the issue in order to keep their sugar-daddies freewheeling.

This is sad.

Just don’t get a car with connected internet, or smart X in any way, which is most modern cars unfortunately, and if you do, disable the telemetry. I have a clean, cool, low mileage ~15yo car, has no screen or apps, no internet, no back camera or even digital dashboard. I put a screen that has offline CoMaps app, if I ever needed it, and its OBD connected to a local app that does usual diagnostics. Sure, there’s logging I see and it happens, but it’s all local and never shared let alone connect things gas or odometer or driving habits.

And the DMV (Department of Motor vehicle Services) has also sold registration data. In California, and Texas, they have been fined for this - I'm unsure they aren't completely barred from using a loophole to still do that.

This is why I'm a vocal advocate for having an LLC own any vehicles you might drive. It protects you from the license-plate reading lookup as well from Flock et all. Though I don't know it guarantees you can't be looked up by insurance it's resistance by one more bit of friction. The vehicle I drive now is an old 2012 Lexus owned by Montana LLC and it also has no smart technology and very little insurance costs.

How is this not stealing?

I'm going to pirate shit until this is fixed.

I drive a restored 2002 Citroen C5.

Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's.. Also they wont burn oil like a modern car + more durable and repairable metal parts.

https://youtu.be/Ft12aZffCEg?si=qP1J5k6RXAxmZChf

https://youtu.be/SeMZGICNSMg?si=-YLnt5Q477xpFbra

https://youtu.be/8Kp108x4tQA?si=j7JV-_Dpl5afP99F

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