Your car is selling your data
48 points by bookofjoe 2 hours ago | 33 comments

bitparadox 2 minutes ago
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.

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tomrod 42 minutes ago
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.

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schmeichel 40 minutes ago
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...
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natch 20 minutes ago
Vote with your dollars. I know one brand that has the most leading edge tech and does not sell my data so I bought from them. However they do use my anonymized data to train models for a future FSD capability but only because I opted in to that.
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willis936 33 minutes ago
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.
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classified 14 minutes ago
> features spouses expect to just work

Never underestimate the risks of spousal dissatisfaction.

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WarmWash 30 minutes ago
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.
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derwiki 22 minutes ago
Why do you need remote access to your car? What updates does your car need?
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WarmWash 12 minutes ago
You can do stuff like like turn it on to heat or cool the cabin, live track it's location, lock/unlock doors, open/close trunk, and updates are mostly for the infotainment systemn and driving assists.

Their is a cell modem in the car, so all these features are available anywhere the car has cell service.

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ryandrake 23 minutes ago
Why does a car need "remote access" and to "receive updates?" I'd consider this a bonus side effect.
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ellisv 18 minutes ago
People who live in cold or hot places like to prestart the climate control in their car.
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forgetfreeman 40 minutes ago
Simple: don't own a vehicle with this capability.
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tomrod 39 minutes ago
Much like owning a home without an HOA attached, it is becoming harder and harder to meet this requirement.

It also seems to conflict with `right-to-repair` laws if the capability is legally required.

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calvinmorrison 19 minutes ago
How do you think right-to-repair intersects with cars?

An obvious thing may be to say the software must be published or the spec released, but we've had computers in cars since the 80s. It seems like a tall task but people can and do reverse engineer entire ECU systems (See Trionic Tuning)

Another seemingly very obvious one - requiring manufacturers to publish specifications regarding ALL OBD interface options. Of course this immediately runs into trouble. Saab for example gated features of the security system to prevent key reprogramming, swapping of certain components without a dial out to the internet using specific saab software that runs on a laptop and interfaces.

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cucumber3732842 19 minutes ago
>Much like owning a home without an HOA attached, it is becoming harder and harder to meet this requirement.

The near universal proliferation of owner's associations and management groups and whatnot for developments larger than ~1ac (the EPA threshold, some states/towns have lower) is something you can lay at the feet of the Clean Water Act and it's implementation and precedents over the following decades.

The exact area of the buildings, the driveways, the community park and gazebo, etc, etc, are necessary features of the site plan that makes the math that is required to meet stormwater/environmental requirements. And and some legal entity has to be responsible for that in perpetuity. Enter the HOA. This is also why HOAs often won't allow you to expand your driveway or add a non-permeable patio, it could (prob not, but still) ruin the environmental calculations they're responsible for enforcing as a condition.

I'm not nearly as familiar with car regulatory stuff but I would bet a lot of money that they're using OTA telematics to check some sort of compliance box...

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thfuran 6 minutes ago
There’s no reason that sort of compliance needs an HOA. Most places already have building codes enforced by mandatory government inspections for major renovations.
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Cider9986 7 minutes ago
Apparently Rivians can be prevented from doing this:

Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?

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

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cc62cf4a4f20 51 minutes ago
That‘ll happen when you don‘t have meaningful data protection laws.
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BlackRabbit1 17 minutes ago
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.

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amelius 23 minutes ago
My question is why, with their protection laws, Smart TVs and Smart Cars are still sold in the EU?
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thfuran 2 minutes ago
Do they do the same spying on the models/units produced for sale in EU? It’s not actually a necessary part of the operation of the device, so it makes sense they’d be able to sell them without it.
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derwiki 21 minutes ago
Can I invoke CCPA to get a report of and/or delete my data?
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amelius 6 minutes ago
How is this not stealing?

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

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amelius 25 minutes ago
Smart Car is the new Smart TV.
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jeffbee 35 minutes ago
Contrary to the HN bias, but a way to avoid this if you want to get a new car full of tech gadgets is to get one that runs on Android Automotive. The privacy policy is a normal tech company privacy policy. Other cars come with privacy notices that just say they can give your data to anybody.
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VCFundedGenYer 23 minutes ago
1. Android Automotive is run by Google, so that entire argument goes out the window immediately, because Google

2. Car companies bypass CarPlay/Android Auto with their own head units with software that executes before the projection software does.

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thepryz 10 minutes ago
Sorry, but a lot of cars, even if they run Android Automotive, maintain a separate TCU/DCM with its own cellular connection that can collect vehicle information independently of Android Automotive.
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everyone 43 minutes ago
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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thrownawaysz 19 minutes ago
>Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's

Talking as an eastern european: unless you live in a sunshine place (~Mediterranean) most of the 90s car already eaten by the rust + the salt used for defrosting on roads in the winter.

Also by my experience cars (except from SUVs) somehow never kept up with the road quality. Pot holes are a problem everywhere but you can see that certain brands for example japanese and korean ones never designed for deteriorating road quality (and I don't mean offroad) because... you know they just don't exist in the home market. So the tires, wheels, suspension are not as robust as they should be.

Sure _everything can be fixed_ but then your car becomes a hobby and might not everyone has an attitude and time for that.

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wkjagt 9 minutes ago
My wife's Ioniq 5 was hit on the bumper while it was parked. Took weeks for all parts to get to the dealer and cost thousands of dollars because sensors etc. if someone hit my 1981 Volvo 240 the same way I'm not even sure it would cause any noticable damage.
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herbst 30 minutes ago
I really wanted a modern car because of the fancy automation stuff, I thought.

But it never is economical or more environmental friendly.

Whatever I saved on my old car compared to a newer one will never be less than the theoretical fuel savings on a newer car. Repair costs will never be as much (assuming you buy a popular repair friendly car). And nothing new needs to be built for me either.

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wallkroft 53 minutes ago
BREAKING: The water found in the ocean
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