> Important: Even after the modem is removed, if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota.
How is this the case? I thought bluetooth was just sharing my phone's audio. Why would it allow requests over the internet? Surely there's a way to tell the phone not to give its internet connection to any connected bluetooth device?
I think there are details being left out. But several people in the comments indicate that there is a Toyota app that provides various features. I bet the app implements some proprietary bluetooth service that the head unit connects to and feeds information through. Or maybe they give the head unit a straight pipe to the internet via that service.
When reading the article I think he appears to be talking about car play/android auto connection not audio only connections. I think Bluetooth in AA and Carplay is used to configure a local network between the phone and the car to transmit the images to the cars screen. I would assume that that data capability can also be used for the car to communicate with the Internet.
I have the same car and want to do this, but not for the reasons the author noted but because the GPS unit in the car is broken when paired with Carplay and has the wrong compass heading causing navigation to be completely useless.
I have reported this to Toyota multiple times with videos detailing the problem and they have denied the problem and ultimately when faced with the evidence simply refused to fix it.
I've been a big fan of Toyota's Production System and their management culture, but this experience has really diminished the brand for me. I realize these problems exist with all cars today. The pattern seems to be to foist low-quality hardware and software on their customers and take no responsibility for the results. Software bugs aren't what they consider a "typical car problem" so they simply don't fix them.
I have exactly the same problem in my (latest-model) Honda Civic / Android Auto! I thought I was going crazy, I'm glad to hear someone else has the same problem.
The only fix I've found is to disconnect the phone and use its map standalone, just sending audio over Bluetooth. Maybe it's possible to get Android Auto or Carplay to reject GPS data from the car? I don't know...
Some brands take software very seriously. This isn't an "entire industry" problem.
My experience is pretty small; I've owned the same Tesla Model 3 LR for the last 6.5 years, and the software has been pretty much solid the entire time. There was briefly a problem with echos when I called land lines using the bluetooth and my iPhone, but that problem eventually went away - not clear if it was because the iPhone changed, the software was updated, or perhaps the particular landline I was calling got an upgraded CO, but for a car that's a pretty good track record. There were some sensor glitches but they got fixed.
I've test driven other cars. Lucid Air - tons of weird glitches. Rivian - almost as good as the Tesla, but laggy UI on a brand new car. My Tesla is almost seven years old and still smooth as the day it was new! How do they do it?
Compass heading specifically does seem to be unusually challenging. Does anyone else recall the bizarre "Google Maps on iPhone is 90 deg off" problem? Totally strange.
Yeah, this is similar to what I hear about Tesla's everywhere. While some members of the company leadership can be polarizing, the product itself seems very solid. Have been saving up for my first "good" car since starting my end-career job, really want to get a Tesla, but wish there was a hybrid option due to charger anxiety. Otherwise, would get one already.
As a fellow Tesla Model 3 LR owner, I can confirm that this has been my experience as well. I bought mine in 2008. So nearly 8 years old and still going strong.
> Even after the modem is removed, if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota. However, if you use a wired USB connection then it does not do that (see the discussion here and elsewhere), so I exclusively use CarPlay via USB.
The problem with this is that both carplay and android auto capture their own vehicle telemetry. So even though the car is not able to use your phone as a general data pipe, Google and Apple still get access to this data when you're connected.
They are both very cagey with how they talk about this (or don't).
Is there any information about precisely what vehicle telemetry they capture and retain?
I know the laws are far from perfect, but isn't there some legislation compelling them to disclose what they collect?
What specifically would be the most relevant law/regulation? (If it varies by geography, pick any major market, eg. California, that is big enough to impact their engineering design and the content of published material). You mentioned they're cagey, and my aim is to examine if there's a gap between what they're supposed to disclose and what they do, which could be rectified by litigation. Eg. If they just say "vehicle telemetry" that doesn't tell you much, and I'd happily contribute to an EFF effort to get them to elaborate.
Alternatively someone who works close to this code could provide some examples of what a "typical" smartphone OS platform collects these days.
And once you've gotten rid of Google and Apple, your telecom company tracks you, your CC payments help track you and even cameras in public do.
It's hard to not want to throw your hands in the air screaming "whatever" when almost everything you use in public is somehow used to track you either as you move around, or in the future.
This is one of those things that can't ever be solved with individual solutions but needs to be solved through legislation and standards, and ideally a fundamental right to privacy (and a fundamental redefinition of what privacy means when it comes to corporate surveillance of individuals).
I disagree. Government leaders will never give up their pipeline of knowing everything about everyone.
The real solution is technology, and popularization of something similar to Freenet, and hardware with an OS that is powerful enough for most people use their phones today, and as easy to use as Android or iOS.
Cell providers will still track and permanently store and sell your location information, and any conversation over SMS or non-E2E platforms will also still permanently stored, but at minimum you can have private conversations when you really want and your online activity (outside of banking etc) can be private.
Things will both get harder and easier with AI. Harder because soon the government will have AI track every single person on the planet, and an LLM will be reading every text, email, and online post you make to make sure you're not a threat to national security or some excuse around CSAM (which I'm not advocating for, obv). On the flipside, as we move away from things like browsers, and can have local LLM models do most of our web browsing for us and present it however we want (free of ads, tracking, annoying styling, cookie banners), it will be easier to not have friction for changing browsers and operating systems etc to protect your privacy.
If your margins are so razor thin that the cost of handling cash is significant, you need to raise your prices. Cash is legal tender -- not accepting it for in-person transactions is really shitty (maybe shouldn't be allowed?)
You can't even get coins counted for free at retail banks anymore. Cash handling is too expensive even for the place that ostensibly provides cash handling services to the general public.
It's not about "just raise prices", it's about some industries (e.g. upstart restaurants) that already have massive failure rates and have hyper competition. Even airlines don't make money on flights, and instead only on selling credits cards or other perks.
If your operating costs are some percentage higher for accepting cash versus the coffee shop across the street that doesn't, you're more likely to fail.
If everyone has to accept cash, then everyone has the same costs and the point is moot. At any rate, courts are required to accept legal tender, and I think that requirement ought to extend to businesses as well.
The real problem for those businesses is way upstream of payment processing costs, namely in the cost of business loans, the general poverty of the American consumer, and (for brick-and-mortars) zoning. The latter is a matter of getting municipalities to relax restrictions put in place mid-century literally to support segregation, and the former two are a matter of forcing the wealthy to eat the costs of their poor decisions from the last few decades, rather than allowing them to socialize related losses through avenues like scandalously low labor pay vis a vis productivity and various investment/asset market scams (which, through housing and passive retirement investment, they've roped in Boomers and older Gen-Xers).
If you wish to make an apple pie shop from scratch, you must first invent an economy that isn't hamstrung by legacy obligations from ventures that people who are long-dead somehow were allowed to finance with your paycheck. (Somewhere, a middle-aged nepo-baby is clutching her pearls at the thought, and I just think we should cherish, rather than shy from, the opportunity to throw her and her siblings under the bus.)
>if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota
Source? Can bluetooth devices do that without the user's knowledge?
I assume that the original article statement is referring to connecting to CarPlay/Android Auto wirelessly, not simply connecting via Bluetooth for a speaker-type setup. But I do not know that this is the case. Certainly, I would assume all privacy bets are off if you connect CarPlay/Android Auto in any manner.
Is android auto still available with Graphene? AA is genuinely one of the few life-changing features introduced in the last decade that I'd prefer not to go without.
Yep and works flawlessly via USB for me. That was a deal breaker for me for the longest time too.
Allowing it to connect over Bluetooth requires granting AA plenty of additional permissions which I didn't want to do (but hey, on GOS at least you can muzzle that thing).
On Android there is an option called "Bluetooth tethering - Share phone's internet connection via Bluetooth" . If it is On and you are connected to the car's bluetooth it will have internet access via your phone.
I'm suspicious that the car's system can do this. I don't think we should be assuming your car can tether internet through bluetooth until we see someone snoop Toyota-bound traffic being routed through their phone.
Unfortunately that's not quite true, since the "app screen" on the media display during Android Auto use has an additional "Toyota" icon that AFAIK isn't coming from my phone.
What's more concerning is that it's entirely unclear exactly what information is shared over the Android Auto link, in my case, over Bluetooth.
There's a protobuf-based API for two-way communication between the Android Auto app and the head unit [0]. It depends on what the headunit supports, but this includes data such as GPS location, steering wheel button activation, accelerometer data, parking brake activation, gear selection, touch screen input, dimmer switch position, odometer, and much more.
A lot of this has obvious use within the AA interface; for example, the parking brake position is used to prevent scrolling too far through lists, and the car's GPS is usually much more accurate than the phone's and better on the phone battery.
One of the things I notice CarPlay has access to is the fan speed. In one of my vehicles, when I say “hey siri” it turns the HVAC fan down so it can hear me better. I’ve always wondered if the interface is the phone telling the car “hey make things quieter” or if it’s explicitly turning the fan down. It’s also interesting that this only happens in one of my cars. I assume it’s because the other car is a higher end vehicle and has a quieter fan.
In GM cars (as observed in my last few), the logic is in the head unit: "mic on -> hvac lower", while "hotword detect" uses a different "mic on" method that doe snot
Can you clarify? Does it feed it bullshit data? Because android auto expects car telemetry data which it streams to Google's servers. Which is a big no-no for me for obvious reasons.
It doesn't stop Android Auto from doing whatever with the car data, but it's sandboxed to have no more default privileges than a regular app, so it can be denied access to your phone's data by default (apps, contacts, etc.). Wireless AA will only work if you grant it extra privileges; wired AA does not need them.
You can also "firewall" AA via something like TrackerControl, this would let you block connections to eg. Google Analytics servers without denying network access altogether (which would likely cause AA to stop working). I've only used AA with short-term rentals so I didn't spend too much time exploring these options.
Sure -- I'm not asking a general question, but thinking about my wife's phone, which is paired as an audio device. It sounds like we're probably in good shape.
AFAIK, every single one of those "built-in navigation/maps" either require the car itself is internet connected (with its own modem), or that you every year get a SD card with map updates to stick into the car.
I guess it's fine in an emergency, but I wouldn't want to use it day-by-day, the live traffic/road closure information in my case ends up saving us tons of time over the year.
My 2019 Subaru legacy supports auto and does not have built in navigation. The aftermarket dashboard display in my 2011 Ford ranger also supports android auto but has no built in GPS.
Yes. I can't remember which cars (some base-model Hyundais I think) but I know I've rented a few that did have Android Auto but did not have any navigation included.
In a perfect world they wouldn't collect it either, but I'd rather Apple have it than the car manufacturer (or rather, only Apple vs both Apple and the car manufacturer)
> then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota [...] so I exclusively use CarPlay via USB.
I would be concerned that a passenger connecting their phone to it while I was driving.
In other cars I've been successful picking up the relevant modules for peanuts from surplus/scrap then just desoldering the RF-active components (like bt radios, etc) and swapping them in. YMMV but if it doesn't work you're just out the cost of a junk part.
Even if some radio feature is benign its existence means that its hard to be confident that there isn't some other telemetry feature you missed. With no connectivity at all you don't need to worry that you missed something because you can monitor the car with a spectrum analyzer and observe its never transmitting.
Unfortunately in some newer cars you can't swap any modules without a dealer tool to pair the module to the car, presumably in a bid to prevent third parties from fixing the car (presumably preventing people from lobotomizing their surveillance isn't on their radar yet).
$100k is in Canadian dollars? I just added almost every accessory/package and option to the the 2026 GR Sport Plug-in Hybrid RAV4, and it came out to $55,821. If there were options that were nearly identical, I only added the most expensive one. So I only added one hammock ($340) and one of the Pelican Dayventure Backpack Cooler ($301). This includes the dog first-aid kit, and the human first-aid kit. Maybe all the options will come through this link:
No, they meant inflated. Cars are quite expensive right now, and dealers are notorious for raking in cash through financing. If they were subsidized, prices would be lower to increase user base, as in the aforementioned dynamic present in the current smart TV market.
I think the inital point was that car manufacturers/dealers are double dipping through initial cost/interest AND data harvesting.
Both an high end tv or a car are expensive items where the manufacturer shouldn’t be making additional income on your personal data.
A free 55 inch tv supported by ads would be subsidized. A big ticket item price likely does not change even if it intrudes on your privacy and the manufacturer makes additional income on your data. In that sense it’s not subsidized it’s just greedy business practices.
Buy Nissan instead, they will do that for you free of charge. I own 2021 Nissan Leaf and Nissan sent me an email early this year telling that the communication infrastructure costs too much for them and they are taking it down.
Jokes aside, I am seriously pissed at Nissan because it was one of reasons I bought it in the first place: to pre-heat or pre-cool the car remotely before going to work, while it is still plugged to the wall charger. And they just decided to take it down. Funny thing, they even mentioned in the email that "not to worry, I can still use my AC when I am in the car". Wow.
Sorry, rant. Anyway, my point being - buy Nissan Leaf, no connectivity guaranteed by the manufacturer, LOL.
The 2024 Ford Maverick has a single fuse for the telematics unit that you can remove without throwing a code or an error. No idea if this remained true after the 2025-2026 refresh, but worth knowing.
Kias have a “Massachusetts mode” flag hidden behind a service menu (that needs a dealer code) that disables telematics at the owner’s request. However, the service menu pin also has timeout protection that will inject a waiting period between retries so there is no guessing.
I don’t think there’s convincing my dealer to get into the service menu and disabling it.
I would presume that other manufacturers might have this as well.
Give one of the mechanics $500 and I bet they’ll accidentally drop the password on the floor of the car as they get out after moving it inside to change the oil.
> Kias have a “Massachusetts mode” flag hidden behind a service menu (that needs a dealer code) that disables telematics at the owner’s request.
I would be very concerned that the flag just continues to submit your data but with a "telematics disabled" bit set on it. This is absolutely how location privacy is implemented in some devices. Moreover, even if it is effective it could be remotely reset including accidentally as part of an update.
Older Toyotas also had a DCM fuse, and this was the easiest way to get rid of telemetry. I am not sure if partially disassembling the dash and physically removing the DCM is now necessary.
There's still a fuse for the DCM even in this car but:
- It has an internal battery and will keep running for quite a while after pulling the fuse. This is a safety feature in case you get in a crash that disconnects the 12V battery
- It will break your in-car microphone as discussed. Repairing that requires opening up the dash
- That won't do anything for disconnecting the GPS antenna
Just a note about Toyota specifically - There are many blog posts and articles out there alleging that Toyota shares your data with insurance companies.
As I own two Toyota's I have read through these carefully and consistently the theme is that the owner was opted into this program without knowing it (likely by the sales person clicking through setup steps to enable every feature). If you are not opted in, I have seen no evidence they share driving data.
When I set up my Toyotas, the app clearly walks through the programs they have and you must click either "yes/opt in" or "no/opt out" for each program. It is not opted in by default.
I've bought multiple Toyotas from the same dealer, and each time the sales person has been overly aggressive about setting up the app and connecting to the car. The first time I let them do it to a point as I had not seen what it did, but had to prevent them from syncing contacts. After that, I had to be very stern about not needing help to set up an app I was never going to use. I don't know if they are used to neophytes being unable to handle this and think they are doing a service or if it's a push to get people to connect/sync as much as possible.
> Unfortunately I think it’s only a matter of time before the modem and GPS become more deeply integrated into the car (making this blog post infeasible), or cars have more drastic failure modes when the modem/GPS is removed, or anti-right-to-repair laws get passed to further clamp down on this behavior.
> Even after the modem is removed, if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota
What is the basis for this claim? I've never heard of this capability.
> One caveat, if you use bluetooth to connect your phone to the car DCM will use your phone to connect to the mother ship and presumably send your data. I only use my iPhone cable to connect to the car which does not have this effect.
A random post on a forum is not evidence that Toyota has found a magic way to exfiltrate data over a bluetooth connection without turning on hotspot/etc.
It's not evidence against it either. Presumably CarPlay and Android Auto could implement a network interface through the application layer, or even activate Bluetooth tethering at the system level as they are privileged apps.
But they could also do this over USB, so something doesn't add up.
> Strong Federal privacy laws would make posts like this unnecessary, that’s the world I’d rather live in.
yes. there ought to be a right to reasonable expectation of behavioral privacy where if it's not obvious and intrinsic to function that behavior is being recorded then it must be consented with functional opt-out.
gps tracking to the manufacturer of a car seems egregious. i wonder if it runs afoul of anti-stalking laws.
The author probably means CarPlay and Android Auto. In wireless mode they share the phone's internet connection. The adapter linked in the article is a CarPlay adapter, not plain BT.
Seems like this way of using CarPlay isn’t documented. Bluetooth is used for discovery and WiFi/USB for CarPlay communication but not for providing car and internet access. Using users’ phone data without notice could be noticeable by users as well…
It would also require that my phone not show my car using the hotspot, when it does show my laptop, and also for my cellphone plan to not show that usage (I have limited hotspot data), which is theoretically possible, but now we're talking three companies having to collude in a totally undetectable fashion, which seems a little far fetched.
Bluetooth PAN seems to work pretty seamlessly once you've paired your phone and set it up. It's possible some kind of "seamless hotspot" functionality is remotely activating PAN on a paired device.
The reason I think this is a bad idea is that it lulls you into a false sense of security. The article makes recommendations that seem thorough and sensible - keyword "seem" - but, as mentioned elsewhere here, there are other potential hidden sources of telemetry (in CarPlay and Android Auto), and who knows what else. For this kind of thing to succeed as a general lifestyle, you would need to invest an enormous amount of time making potentially irreversible modifications to all kinds of electronic equipment - only to be virtually guaranteed to miss something. Do this kind of thing if you want, but don't be fooled into thinking you're actually solving the problem for real.
I would like everyone to know that if you have a brand new Kia, the process is even easier. I spent $20 on the Kia service manual access (didn't even know that was a thing until I read OP's post) it finally figured it out.
Modern Kias with the CCNC cockpit have a data connectivity unit that exclusively handles cellular. If you can get this unit unplugged, which only requires two Phillips head screws to remove, your set. It took me nearly 2 years to figure this out. Thanks OP
I was looking into this with Teslas. Apparently the car will not be bricked if you cut the antenna wires. They are in the side mirrors (both sides) and the wires are exposed when you pull the interior door panels.
If you then charge only at home you’re even more private than gas cars, which must stop at gas stations with cameras.
But both types of vehicles are easily spotted with Flock cameras. And if you keep your phone on that tracks you, too.
I’m not that paranoid so I won’t do it, I just wanted to know.
Modern cars are horrible. I recently discovered that all new cars sold in the EU constantly beep at you for supposedly speeding, even though the system doesn’t work well, and it has to be turned off every time you start the car.
It’s horrible since it gets the speed wrong 25% of the time and 25% of the time it beeps because you are doing 33 in a 30kmh zone because you are just going along with traffic.
When you get in a car, you have to spend 20 seconds disabling all those systems. Lane keep assist is downright dangerous as it keeps you in your lane if you do an emergency avoidance manoeuvre.
I don’t hate safety system like emergency brake assist or ABS but I don’t need a nanny keeping me in my lane. I also don’t need a coffee symbol for taking a break.
Isn't eye tracking required there too now? If you look away, or even not in the direction the car expects, for more than a couple of seconds >> more beeps.
We need more posts like this. I'd love a follow-up where instead of removing it injects fake data to the system. I am tired of passively being digitally assaulted. If they are going to do this to me without my knowing consent I want to fight back.
Yeah, like AdNauseam. We're way too polite when it comes to these exploitative corporations. Start poisoning their data sets. Start costing them as much money as humanly possible. Drive their returns on investments as close to zero as possible, ideally well into the negatives.
I'm always surprised there aren't more projects that just pump random data back into all of these system. I think awhile back there was a plugin that would click on every advertisement it saw over and over, but got shutdown for some reason. But how hard is it to just have everyone inject nonstop data to all of these tracking systems? if nothing else a drive somewhere is going to eventually fill up.
Hmmm... This isn't evil enough. This could actually work. This data is valuable which means there are entities that will pay to bias it. If you want a business to look more traveled, create fake driving tracks to it. If you want insurance to give you an amazing deal, build a system to slow your driving to look perfect. Random is likely easy to detect but why not get paid to forward fake data that someone else wants to inject! They will spend real time figuring out how to make it look real and get value out of it which will -really- destroy the dataset.
There's a fortune to be made for whomever produces a car that has minimal features, and and electric-drivetrain with onboard gasoline generator. No screens, knobs and buttons, no assists. Extra fortune if you can licence designs and revive some of the old-and-loved classics with new safety features.
I think the problem is there isn't a fortune there. It would be a successful endeavor, but not something to rake in huge piles of cash. The kinds of leaders and investors who could pull off what you're describing are instead working where they can make multi-millions rather that multi-hundreds of thousands.
It is probably like with smart TV's where the value of the telemetry data ends up subsidizing a significant fraction of the hardware. Car manufacturers seem to be doing a lot of experiments with what they can charge for in terms of ongoing subscriptions. I am sure if they could show ads without it being considered distracting they would.
Apps like Spotify in my Volvo are convinced I am in New Jersey while I'm on the opposite coast. On one hand I like that inaccurate data is being peddled to advertisers but at the same time I would actually prefer regionally relevant ads if I have to listen to them anyway.
CAN is a protocol, but the messages on the bus are implementation specific. Yes, you can use it on any CAN bus, but there's no guarantee that you will be able to decode the traffic. Some modern CAN networks are encrypted, too, because it's trivial to view the traffic. https://kentindell.github.io/2021/01/02/can2-wireshark/ has a great guide on decoding traffic with sigrok.
From what I understand the CAN traffic on my vehicle is encrypted. Clearly this does not apply to all of the traffic, as I can fetch some OBD2 data with a generic dongle.
The data on the OBD2 port is legally mandated, so can't be encrypted. But besides encryption CAN buses in a car are also separated, the bus on the OBD2 plug often can't even talk to the most interesting components.
Has anyone experienced a case where they needed an over-the-air safety update/recall performed, but weren't able to because they removed the cellular modem?
I'd like to think failure to apply an OTA safety update would trigger a mail-out notification requesting you bring the vehicle into the dealer. But that's probably optimistic...
Also worth noting that as recently as 2024, the S and SV models for Nissan did not have telematics whatsoever. This may still be true for the 2025 / 2026 models, I just haven't checked.
How good a position can you get from GPS today in receive only mode?
You can download and store Open Street Map for individual states. Map data doesn't have to come in over the air. That's not the problem. It's enhancing GPS with cell phone tower data that's the problem. That requires a cell connection.
I don't think cell tower connection will give you any more precision, GNSS fix will be much more accurate. (within few meters)
You could get more accurate fix with RTK data, but I'm not sure if that's actually widely used. And in any case that doesn't require active communications either, you could get correction data from satellite broadcasts too.
GPS is exceedingly accurate compared to cellular signals on it's own. What it isn't is fast. So the "enhanced GPS" is mostly just proving satellite ephemerides so your GPS device can lock onto the overhead satellites faster.
If your device has zero GPS signal then you can get ~100m accuracy from the cellular signals alone. If your device doesn't have "enhanced GPS" then you can get ~1m accuracy from the GPS signals alone.
I think towers were historically already much more accurate than 100m in urban areas.
Note that this changed with 5G beamforming. The new towers have a much better idea of where you are. (My understanding (thanks to other HN commenters) is that technically it's possible to do beamforming without deriving precise 3D coordinates but that this isn't how it's done in practice.)
Technically it only requires an antenna that can listen on the LTE band (or even GSM). Trilaterating based on cell towers with a hackRF or other SDR is a fun exercise.
> Everything that relies on a data connection will no longer work. This includes things like over-the-air updates as well as Toyota cloud-based services and SOS functionality
I hate how this is a trade off. It’s totally possible for cars to broadcast their location only if the SOS is pressed or the crash sensor is triggered, but it feels like there’s no way to have that without also having everything else.
Excellent practical guide and pictures, if OP is around on this thread: well done! Your future self is going to appreciative too when this needs repeating at some point!
Last year we got a rental car when we were in Florida. When we first left the airport, we were using the navigation app that was in the car. First red light? Navigation app suddenly goes black and a commercial starts playing. My wife and I both look at each other like, "WTF is going on?!?" Light turns green commercial clips out and the navigation app starts working again. We waited to see if it happened at the next light. Sure enough, the last commercial finished and another started as the light turned green.
Tuned it off and used our phones from there to the hotel. That was the last time we used a rental cars navigation.
This would be the last time I used that rental car company. If they wanted to make more money from you, they should have just raised the price. That is disgusting.
Why is a self-driving car so important to you? Is it really worth giving up your privacy, and advocating that others should give up theirs, just for some shortcoming in your own capabilities?
Why should a self driving car need a network connection? It's an absurd false dichotomy. Certainly that's what will be produced if the manufacturers are allowed to get away with it but that's not a technical problem it's a social and legal one.
You would be surprised how leaky RF can be and how hard to completely suppress. There is a reason things like anechoic chambers and test labs are very expensive.
Leaky - possibly, but we are dealing with the real world where you have plenty of background noise. The cell tower will likely fail to receive the signal.
That's just it - move in just the right spot where reflections combine in the right way, and it might be enough to get a ping. So the tracking would still be there just less reliable, with an unknown level of degradation. In the end you still wouldn't have any guarantees.
In case of Subaru turning off 2G made their modems keep trying to reconnect 24/7 draining and killing battery. Subaru refused replacing batteries killed by defective car.
Great guide! After getting to the end, I had no idea what AirPlay was so I looked it up... bro, all this effort to avoid telemetry and you are using an iPhone XD
If you are wary of all the smart features in your next car purchase, consider buying a bicycle. We do not have to entertain the creeping invasion of our privacy
How is this the case? I thought bluetooth was just sharing my phone's audio. Why would it allow requests over the internet? Surely there's a way to tell the phone not to give its internet connection to any connected bluetooth device?
I have reported this to Toyota multiple times with videos detailing the problem and they have denied the problem and ultimately when faced with the evidence simply refused to fix it.
I've been a big fan of Toyota's Production System and their management culture, but this experience has really diminished the brand for me. I realize these problems exist with all cars today. The pattern seems to be to foist low-quality hardware and software on their customers and take no responsibility for the results. Software bugs aren't what they consider a "typical car problem" so they simply don't fix them.
The only fix I've found is to disconnect the phone and use its map standalone, just sending audio over Bluetooth. Maybe it's possible to get Android Auto or Carplay to reject GPS data from the car? I don't know...
My experience is pretty small; I've owned the same Tesla Model 3 LR for the last 6.5 years, and the software has been pretty much solid the entire time. There was briefly a problem with echos when I called land lines using the bluetooth and my iPhone, but that problem eventually went away - not clear if it was because the iPhone changed, the software was updated, or perhaps the particular landline I was calling got an upgraded CO, but for a car that's a pretty good track record. There were some sensor glitches but they got fixed.
I've test driven other cars. Lucid Air - tons of weird glitches. Rivian - almost as good as the Tesla, but laggy UI on a brand new car. My Tesla is almost seven years old and still smooth as the day it was new! How do they do it?
Compass heading specifically does seem to be unusually challenging. Does anyone else recall the bizarre "Google Maps on iPhone is 90 deg off" problem? Totally strange.
The problem with this is that both carplay and android auto capture their own vehicle telemetry. So even though the car is not able to use your phone as a general data pipe, Google and Apple still get access to this data when you're connected.
They are both very cagey with how they talk about this (or don't).
I know the laws are far from perfect, but isn't there some legislation compelling them to disclose what they collect?
What specifically would be the most relevant law/regulation? (If it varies by geography, pick any major market, eg. California, that is big enough to impact their engineering design and the content of published material). You mentioned they're cagey, and my aim is to examine if there's a gap between what they're supposed to disclose and what they do, which could be rectified by litigation. Eg. If they just say "vehicle telemetry" that doesn't tell you much, and I'd happily contribute to an EFF effort to get them to elaborate.
Alternatively someone who works close to this code could provide some examples of what a "typical" smartphone OS platform collects these days.
It's hard to not want to throw your hands in the air screaming "whatever" when almost everything you use in public is somehow used to track you either as you move around, or in the future.
The real solution is technology, and popularization of something similar to Freenet, and hardware with an OS that is powerful enough for most people use their phones today, and as easy to use as Android or iOS.
Cell providers will still track and permanently store and sell your location information, and any conversation over SMS or non-E2E platforms will also still permanently stored, but at minimum you can have private conversations when you really want and your online activity (outside of banking etc) can be private.
Things will both get harder and easier with AI. Harder because soon the government will have AI track every single person on the planet, and an LLM will be reading every text, email, and online post you make to make sure you're not a threat to national security or some excuse around CSAM (which I'm not advocating for, obv). On the flipside, as we move away from things like browsers, and can have local LLM models do most of our web browsing for us and present it however we want (free of ads, tracking, annoying styling, cookie banners), it will be easier to not have friction for changing browsers and operating systems etc to protect your privacy.
If your operating costs are some percentage higher for accepting cash versus the coffee shop across the street that doesn't, you're more likely to fail.
If you wish to make an apple pie shop from scratch, you must first invent an economy that isn't hamstrung by legacy obligations from ventures that people who are long-dead somehow were allowed to finance with your paycheck. (Somewhere, a middle-aged nepo-baby is clutching her pearls at the thought, and I just think we should cherish, rather than shy from, the opportunity to throw her and her siblings under the bus.)
Source? Can bluetooth devices do that without the user's knowledge?
Allowing it to connect over Bluetooth requires granting AA plenty of additional permissions which I didn't want to do (but hey, on GOS at least you can muzzle that thing).
How?
What's more concerning is that it's entirely unclear exactly what information is shared over the Android Auto link, in my case, over Bluetooth.
A lot of this has obvious use within the AA interface; for example, the parking brake position is used to prevent scrolling too far through lists, and the car's GPS is usually much more accurate than the phone's and better on the phone battery.
0: https://github.com/f1xpl/aasdk/tree/development/aasdk_proto (pretty old reverse-engineering effort)
You can also "firewall" AA via something like TrackerControl, this would let you block connections to eg. Google Analytics servers without denying network access altogether (which would likely cause AA to stop working). I've only used AA with short-term rentals so I didn't spend too much time exploring these options.
I guess it's fine in an emergency, but I wouldn't want to use it day-by-day, the live traffic/road closure information in my case ends up saving us tons of time over the year.
So I bought an Android auto / Car play module that integrates with the car touch screen. Now I have up to date maps and navigation for ever. :)
I would be concerned that a passenger connecting their phone to it while I was driving.
In other cars I've been successful picking up the relevant modules for peanuts from surplus/scrap then just desoldering the RF-active components (like bt radios, etc) and swapping them in. YMMV but if it doesn't work you're just out the cost of a junk part.
Even if some radio feature is benign its existence means that its hard to be confident that there isn't some other telemetry feature you missed. With no connectivity at all you don't need to worry that you missed something because you can monitor the car with a spectrum analyzer and observe its never transmitting.
Unfortunately in some newer cars you can't swap any modules without a dealer tool to pair the module to the car, presumably in a bid to prevent third parties from fixing the car (presumably preventing people from lobotomizing their surveillance isn't on their radar yet).
https://www.toyota.com/configurator/build/step/summary/year/...
...maybe there is a lot of dealer markup in your area?
I think the inital point was that car manufacturers/dealers are double dipping through initial cost/interest AND data harvesting.
A free 55 inch tv supported by ads would be subsidized. A big ticket item price likely does not change even if it intrudes on your privacy and the manufacturer makes additional income on your data. In that sense it’s not subsidized it’s just greedy business practices.
Jokes aside, I am seriously pissed at Nissan because it was one of reasons I bought it in the first place: to pre-heat or pre-cool the car remotely before going to work, while it is still plugged to the wall charger. And they just decided to take it down. Funny thing, they even mentioned in the email that "not to worry, I can still use my AC when I am in the car". Wow.
Sorry, rant. Anyway, my point being - buy Nissan Leaf, no connectivity guaranteed by the manufacturer, LOL.
https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/telematics-f...
I don’t think there’s convincing my dealer to get into the service menu and disabling it.
I would presume that other manufacturers might have this as well.
How far do you live from Massachusetts, and how do your feel about driving vacations?
I would be very concerned that the flag just continues to submit your data but with a "telematics disabled" bit set on it. This is absolutely how location privacy is implemented in some devices. Moreover, even if it is effective it could be remotely reset including accidentally as part of an update.
Better than not setting it, I suppose! :)
- It has an internal battery and will keep running for quite a while after pulling the fuse. This is a safety feature in case you get in a crash that disconnects the 12V battery
- It will break your in-car microphone as discussed. Repairing that requires opening up the dash
- That won't do anything for disconnecting the GPS antenna
Peppers article with Amazon affiliate links
Perfect summation of 2026
As I own two Toyota's I have read through these carefully and consistently the theme is that the owner was opted into this program without knowing it (likely by the sales person clicking through setup steps to enable every feature). If you are not opted in, I have seen no evidence they share driving data.
When I set up my Toyotas, the app clearly walks through the programs they have and you must click either "yes/opt in" or "no/opt out" for each program. It is not opted in by default.
Guaranteed
What is the basis for this claim? I've never heard of this capability.
A random post on a forum is not evidence that Toyota has found a magic way to exfiltrate data over a bluetooth connection without turning on hotspot/etc.
But they could also do this over USB, so something doesn't add up.
yes. there ought to be a right to reasonable expectation of behavioral privacy where if it's not obvious and intrinsic to function that behavior is being recorded then it must be consented with functional opt-out.
gps tracking to the manufacturer of a car seems egregious. i wonder if it runs afoul of anti-stalking laws.
Afaik phones do not share their internet blindly to Bluetooth devices.
Modern Kias with the CCNC cockpit have a data connectivity unit that exclusively handles cellular. If you can get this unit unplugged, which only requires two Phillips head screws to remove, your set. It took me nearly 2 years to figure this out. Thanks OP
If you then charge only at home you’re even more private than gas cars, which must stop at gas stations with cameras.
But both types of vehicles are easily spotted with Flock cameras. And if you keep your phone on that tracks you, too.
I’m not that paranoid so I won’t do it, I just wanted to know.
When you get in a car, you have to spend 20 seconds disabling all those systems. Lane keep assist is downright dangerous as it keeps you in your lane if you do an emergency avoidance manoeuvre.
I don’t hate safety system like emergency brake assist or ABS but I don’t need a nanny keeping me in my lane. I also don’t need a coffee symbol for taking a break.
However, you now have a chance to buy one of the rare prototypes!
https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/bollin...
https://rabbit-labs.com/product/cancommander/
Crazy commenter, tell us a little about this. Can I use it on any Can bus?
I'd like to think failure to apply an OTA safety update would trigger a mail-out notification requesting you bring the vehicle into the dealer. But that's probably optimistic...
(I dread the day my 2007 Civic is no longer usable.)
You can download and store Open Street Map for individual states. Map data doesn't have to come in over the air. That's not the problem. It's enhancing GPS with cell phone tower data that's the problem. That requires a cell connection.
You could get more accurate fix with RTK data, but I'm not sure if that's actually widely used. And in any case that doesn't require active communications either, you could get correction data from satellite broadcasts too.
If your device has zero GPS signal then you can get ~100m accuracy from the cellular signals alone. If your device doesn't have "enhanced GPS" then you can get ~1m accuracy from the GPS signals alone.
Note that this changed with 5G beamforming. The new towers have a much better idea of where you are. (My understanding (thanks to other HN commenters) is that technically it's possible to do beamforming without deriving precise 3D coordinates but that this isn't how it's done in practice.)
Technically it only requires an antenna that can listen on the LTE band (or even GSM). Trilaterating based on cell towers with a hackRF or other SDR is a fun exercise.
I hate how this is a trade off. It’s totally possible for cars to broadcast their location only if the SOS is pressed or the crash sensor is triggered, but it feels like there’s no way to have that without also having everything else.
Tuned it off and used our phones from there to the hotel. That was the last time we used a rental cars navigation.
So yeah, its already happening.
DCM Bypass kit. https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/store/AHH-DCM77
You have the full right to view and ask for deletion.
Can you skirt the GDPR by making it hard to discover who you need to ask?