Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Apparently Rivians can be prevented from doing this:
Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
by Cider9986 - I work in grid management, and the Telemetry from EVs is a valuable data stream for steerable demand on the grid, a genuine societal benefit.
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.
by Weryj - 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.
- If you are willing to lose GPS, maybe you could set the car's internal clock to the year 2000. This might fool a cursory data dump that is looking for "last three months of driving habits". Would obviously not stand up to any real scrutiny, but mostly painless.by 3eb7988a1663
- 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
by hughes - Any type of data gathering should be forbidden. The "with consent" is bullshit, as the only way to not give consent is to leave society and live in a cave. (No driving a car, no taking a flight, no reading a website, no subscribing to any service, not playing games, etc.) When there is no real choice there is no consent either.
Corporations have profiles on citizens that makes the Gestapo or the KGB seem uninformed in comparison. There is no freedom when the people in power know everything about you.
by Frieren - That‘ll happen when you don‘t have meaningful data protection laws.by cc62cf4a4f20
- Can I invoke CCPA to get a report of and/or delete my data?by derwiki
- My question is why, with their protection laws, Smart TVs and Smart Cars are still sold in the EU?by amelius
- All European car manufacturers pull a crazy amount of telemetry data from your car.
Either via permanent 4G/5G link or during service intervals in the shop.
Source: I analyzed these data as an intern for one.
by BlackRabbit1 - Several years ago, a German company whose name rhymes with "rowdy" sought permission from a Middle Eastern government to collect location and other information (e.g., speed) from its sold automobiles. The government asked them what they wanted to do with the information. They dithered and dawdled and failed to come up with an answer beyond "improved consumer experience." They failed to mention thay planned to sell the collected information to third-parties.by pseingatl
- 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?
by samsullivan - 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.
by bitwize - 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.
by tomrod - Remember that story a week ago „everything I own, owned“? That’s one way.by Tepix
- It should be as mundane as pulling the SIM card from a phone (or must be)by KurSix
- You learn animal husbandry and join the Amish.by base698
- It definitely can be stopped. For example, China sells cars internally at cheaper prices, but they are locked to prevent using them outside the country. However, there are people who can hack and unlock them allowing operating in any country. But maybe it would be illegal in the West, I don't know. Removing the modem is an easier task.by codedokode
- What sucks is that at least with my car, if you pull their access, you also lose all your remote access as well, and the ability to receive updates.by WarmWash
- > How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective?
It can't. Not realistically.
It can be stopped by legislation. But that would require politicians who have our interests as a priority rather than the various industries. So not going to happen anytime soon.
by hosteur - It is possible to remove the hardware itself that is responsible for this, but depending on the car it can very involved: https://arkadiyt.com/2026/05/13/removing-the-modem-and-gps-f...by schmeichel
- I've had good luck with pulling service manuals, finding the telematics antenna connectors, and unplugging them. It's popular to pull the telematics module fuse, but that typically disables internal microphones and GPS that are used by android auto and carplay. This severely degrades features spouses expect to just work. The antenna pulling is a much lighter touch.by willis936
- 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.)by teekert
- I did a GDPR request to KIA and I was amazed what they collected.
Here's some examples: How long I let the car warm up before driving, G force around every GPS corner, acceleration rates, max speeds, every GPS datapoint etc.
by prism56 - 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...
by jboggan - Well they'll still sell the data but "anonymised" like with phone location data. Better, but not fixed.by IshKebab
- Honda found a work around where they show you a warning on your dash if you disable data collection, similar to maintenance being due or low fuel.
- Another note for Californians -- the California DROP (delete request and opt-out platform) takes VINs as one of the inputs.by porkshoe
- 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.
by bitparadox - What did you do, or what are you going to do? That would piss me off until i found the antenna and broke itby Simulacra