Automatic Transmission – a data-privacy study of connected vehicles

I currently drive a mid 2000s Ford truck, which runs great and meets my needs, but lately I got interested in minivans/people carriers. I pretty quickly realized that newer vehicles seem to not just record, but export a lot of driving data.The minivan market is small. There are really only 4-5 available and every single one sends telemetry data from the car and makes it hard/impossible to opt out of selling your data. Additionally, without pretty extensive work there is no means of physically disabling the telemetry, which forces you to trust they'll honor your opt out request (vs re-enabling it with some update).I'm clearly in the vast minority on this, but it's so frustrating that there are no options beyond buying and installing a third-party bypass to disable this type of tracking. Worse, I'm aware that the absence of data is data itself. Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy? reply: Ford until recently sold a minivan that was ugly as sin (looked like an '87 Vanagon) because it was a panel van with seats added....

if an owner decides they are uncomfortable with the data sharing described within them, they are faced with (arguably) unfair choices: - 01 accept the agreements regardless of their concerns - 02 stop using their car's connected-vehicle features - which includes remote start, the app, and other very useful features - 03 stop using the vehicle entirely Easy, I take #2. Is that it? This whole time I thought the article was talking about telemetry the car sends regardless. reply: I have essentially gone with option 2 in my Audi A3. Every time I turn the car on, it puts up a dialog that warns me that I've made the terrible, terrible decision to not allow remote data and forces me to say, "no, do not turn it on for me now," before I can do anything else on the screen. Every, single, time.

> As one notable exception, Honda improved its data collection practices to prevent sending precise geolocation to a third party associated with user tracking.I know what my next car will be. reply: I already like Honda and own models before they were connected to the cell network. But they are still not 100% there for current models:> Amplitude received from HondaLink: VIN, Location. Cross-context tracking: Amplitude received the VIN plus Location from HondaLink — an unresettable identifier tied directly to other personal data.They are so close they should say "fuck it, we're going to be different, we'll disable all the crap" and then market the heck out of it.

Hope to see a new market for disabling telemetry and phonehome features from cars. It should be legal to do so, if you own the car I suppose. I'm thinking that rigth now few pople even know how much spying their new car does to them but this will change and as awareness grows more and more people will want to do it. reply: I'd rather see it as a standard feature than as a new market.

The ongoing theme of all these responses was shifting the blame to the consumer.As expected. I think consumers also need to push back on these practices, but the problem is, majority of consumers are tech savy but not privacy savy. reply: I'd love to push back, I'm not sure what that looks like though. I can't even get an open source/open hardware phone that's decent, let alone a car.

Ha ha, you fools! No one is collecting my data from my 22-year-old Scion while I drive past Flock cameras every day.Wait... reply: There’s “oh he’s at the grocery store” data,and then there’s “he’s driving in a way we don’t like, let’s make him pay more for his insurance” data.

This seems like something that needs legislation to address. reply: I'm sure that will go about as well as protecting the privacy of individuals in the face of "but the CHILDREN!" age verification.In-vehicle monitoring allows car manufacturers to remind the user to buckle up, keep their eyes on the road, stay off their phones, remind them to take breaks, turn the radio down in tense traffic, remind the driver to take a breath based on increased heart rate to minimize road rage, etc.Heck, we could really reduce lack of seatbelt related injuries and deaths if we could eliminate the 'drive' function while seatbelts are not properly worn (which we can now check with our AI cameras )What are you some kind of anti-safe-driving nut?

Still driving my GR Corolla with the data communications module fuse pulled. reply: Such a fun car! It's my first fun car and oh man what a toy.

May be relevant: noticed a new car dealer today, entered to inquire. Full "gadgety" monsters, pointless bothersome tech just for any-tech thirsty customers.Salesman told me that it does not work without a smartphone.And that it requires the dealer - the vehicle is a still statue without a whole infrastructure behind it to let it work (must be network connected and exchanging with some servers in China, he said - I do not know to which extent; the company greenlights the links to your other gear, and without that the car will not work... Things like that).

Interesting to see how this has evolved. Mozilla had conducted a detailed investigation on this topic by carmaker a few years ago: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-...

While the researchers noted Tesla as having privacy options that can be enabled in the car’s settings, they didn’t seem to test how this changes the # of ATA results. Would have been interesting to see how enabling privacy features changes things.

I was gifted a 90's ford pickup from a family member and plan to get caught up on maintenance and keep it forever. It runs fine and has been a good project. No telemetry and easy to work on.

It is unclear what "vehicle-only ATA companies" means.what is ATA? what do they collect?EDIT: Advertiser/Tracker/Analytics

I'm not surprised the Mercedes has the best privacy...

It's sad that the paper does not mention even once a straightforward solution, which is to pull the cellular modem's fuse or to outright unplug it.

What is the situation like for people who rip out the entertainment system out of older cars and install Android Auto? How "bad" is that?

When I buy an EV, one of the first things I intend to do is disable or block the chips using Wi-Fi and/or cellular from broadcasting further. If that means a faraday shield around the computers in question, so be it.Everything I need can be handled via CarPlay or physical dials/buttons in the vehicle. All this surveillance - on post-COVID priced vehicles no less, averaging ~$50k - is absurd, and I refuse to engage with it.

I've been on GrapheneOS for over 3 years and won't look back.

And this is without even looking at any Chinese manufactured vehicles...

the title of the study is :chef-kiss:

See also the warning from Dutch intelligence about connected vehicles: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/01/cars-smar...The article focuses on Chinese vehicles, but caution should be exercised with all vehicles.

Thankfully for some, Subaru refused to comply with right to repair laws in some American states without disabling its Starlink/MySubaru system. So you get auto-opted out in those states.

So except for Tesla, which sends lots of telemetry regardless, other manufacturers send little if you don't use their companion apps. The companion apps already seemed excessive to me; even more reason to kick them to the curb.

It's so annoying, actually. I’d rather not switch to a newer car because of it.

I don't trust any of my devices anymore (including/especially my car). At the very least I figure that they're spying on me. In the most extreme cases, such as Israel's terrorist pager attack, they may even kill you.I wonder if this is going to create a market for older tech/vehicles that were made prior to ease-of-malware integration? I imagine some sort of cyberpunk future where people are scouring landfills for old 16-bit video game console chips that haven't been backdoored.

...Adobe? What interest do they have in data harvesting so much from vehicles?

Not to take away from the point but wow absolute ai slop of a website

>Our findings underscore the need for continued measurement and scrutiny of the connected vehicle ecosystem.The need is for people to have at least half a brain, and it's not happening. Almost all privacy conversations I've ever had with people ended with "so what".-Companies with interests contrary to your own will know X, Y and Z about you.-So what?