Your Car Is Sharing Data With Big Tech Companies, Study Finds - Consumer Reports
www.consumerreports.org
New study finds cars send driver data to Big Tech companies, including locations, VINs, and other identifiers.
  • dmtalon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    We just bought a new car this year (Kia) and I completely confused the sales lady when I told her we were not going to use the “connect app” or activate connect on the car itself. She was like “lets get you setup in connect” and I was “no thanks”

    We have a nice 🚫 symbol with a radio tree behind it, so I 100% know the car is still connected to the cell network but it is not registered/connected to us, and no app installed.

    Sure, we lose some functionality (remote start, and access to in-car wifi) but all of that is paid subscriptions. Sure they first x months are ‘free’ but after you gotta pony up $ to continue.

    Note: I’m under no illusion tracking is just not happening for us now… I just want to make it harder where I can.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      My wife just got a newer car last week so I’m asking you because you know more than I.

      We never connected a phone to it but the GPS worked right off the bat. Do cars have standalone GPS now? As long as we don’t connect a phone, it can’t reach the internet, right?

      • asbestos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        29 days ago

        Cars have had standalone GNSS (GPS) for quite a while. GNSS itself doesn’t require internet. Its output is coordinates and elevation - it’s the “gotta have internet to load the map in which I’ll show you the coordinates” that makes people associate GNSS with internet. Offline maps solve this.

      • dmtalon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        Oh ya for sure it has a sim.

        If it were my daily driver I’d dig in, find the antenna and shunt it to ground so it could not communicate

        My wife is already not fully onboard with my need for privacy from these companies so I won regarding not activating the car but not sure she’d let me start pulling panels to find and kill the antenna.

  • thru_dangers_untold@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    30 days ago

    And if I were to use a screwdriver to pop a component off of the motherboard, which website would tell me the component to target for my make/model?

  • Joelk111@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    30 days ago

    I hate this style of titles. I’m a gearhead and own 5 vehicles and a motorcycle. None of them are a smartphone on wheels, the newest one is newly 20 years old.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      my '08 (that a bought a '12 to replace) is a rusty pos that needs a lot of high-mileage maintenance and regular maintenance (rusty af everything, gas tank is gonna start leaking soon, pretty much the entire suspension is shot, power steering starting to leak, some sort of engine issues that I’m not sure what exactly is causing it, rusty exhaust headers causing some of the engine issues), but since I can’t get any money for it, I’m not sure when exactly I’m going to get rid of it. might as well keep it around until I know for sure I don’t want to fix it

      • magnolia_mayhem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        The way I see it, we’re about six months out from Mad Max: American Edition. Might make a good road warrior sacrifice vehicle.

  • dimmuborgnine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Would REALLY love to de-surveillance my vehicle if anybody has any tips (please quietly make the “buy an old car instead” jokes to yourself)

  • Corngood@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Researchers connected each vehicle to a custom WiFi access point and logged all outgoing traffic.

    The article talks about both apps and the vehicles themselves. I would really like to see more info on what the cars do when you take the apps out of the equation. Are there any that don’t phone home unless you explicitly give them internet access?

    A study about the results will be published this week.

    I look forward to reading this.

    Edit: actually there’s quite a bit more detailed info at https://automatictransmission.khoury.northeastern.edu/