I was the first person to ask my Honda dealer how to turn off data sharing. It didn't go well.

[Introversion]

https://sherwood.news/tech/how-to-opt-out-of-the-privacy-nightmare-that-comes-factory-installed-in-new/

There are lots of reasons to want to shut off your car’s data collection. The Mozilla Foundation has called modern cars “surveillance machines on wheels” and ranked them worse than any other product category last year, with all 25 car brands they reviewed failing to offer adequate privacy protections.

With sensors, microphones, and cameras, cars collect way more data than needed to operate the vehicle. They also share and sell that information to third parties, something many Americans don’t realize they’re opting into when they buy these cars. Companies are quick to flaunt their privacy policies, but those amount to pages upon pages of legalese that leave even professionals stumped about what exactly car companies collect and where that information might go.

So what can they collect?

“Pretty much everything,” said Misha Rykov, a research associate at the Mozilla Foundation, who worked on the car-privacy report. “Sex-life data, biometric data, demographic, race, sexual orientation, gender — everything.”

It doesn’t mean they necessarily do, but they’re leaving the car door open.

“The impression that we got — and this impression is supported by the official documents of the brands — is that they are trying to be a bit more like Big Tech,” Rykov said. “It looks like most of them are not entirely sure what's going on there.”

The data they may or may not collect can cause real trouble. It can notify your insurance company that you braked too hard or sped up too fast. Car companies can share your info with law enforcement without your knowledge. A domestic abuser could use it to track your whereabouts. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see this heading south.

I wanted to turn off data collection on my car because it’s creepy and I thought the option would be simple. It turns out that shutting off data collection and figuring out what’s been collected is much more difficult than it would seem. I know because it took me — a reasonably informed and technologically savvy person — a month to finally do so.

I’m in good company.

“It’s comically difficult,” Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at Electronic Frontier Foundation, who’s written about how to do just this, told me. “I do this for a living and I am not 100% positive I have gotten everything correct, which is ridiculous.”

…

 

[mrsmig]

I guess there's something to be said for keeping my 20+ year-old car.

 

[Introversion]

I guess there's something to be said for keeping my 20+ year-old car.

And appliances. Our toaster from the 1940s still works, and isn’t “smart”. (Probably those two facts are related?)

 

[Maryn]

I need to start riding a bike everywhere. Sheesh!

 

[Introversion]

I need to start riding a bike everywhere. Sheesh!

Quick, buy one now, before they get AI and a data plan!

 

[Jean P. R. Dubois]

Quick, buy one now, before they get AI and a data plan!

They want to know how much my ass sweats so they can sell me that odor eliminating, moisture wicking, thermal protective, aerodynamic underwear.

This data collection reminds me of something I heard, "If you get a service for free, then YOU are the product." But now thats seeping into every aspect of our lives, even my fridge is telling me I need more broccoli...

 

[CMBright]

They want to know how much my ass sweats so they can sell me that odor eliminating, moisture wicking, thermal protective, aerodynamic underwear.

This data collection reminds me of something I heard, "If you get a service for free, then YOU are the product." But now thats seeping into every aspect of our lives, even my fridge is telling me I need more broccoli...

Um... No. No one needs more broccoli.

 

[Brigid Barry]

There's a reason why I don't do the fun toys my car has and this is it.

I actually read the privacy policies. That's why I stopped using Google stuff and don't have accounts with Samsung or Microsoft.

 

[BustedPrinter]

I guess there's something to be said for keeping my 20+ year-old car.

I have one as well: a 2003 Honda.

It actually is a better car then my wife's 2017 Honda. We take it everywhere because its more comfortable to ride in.

I still get creeped out by my Iphone listening to me everyday and sending me targeted ads.

 

[mrsmig]

I have one as well: a 2003 Honda.

It actually is a better car then my wife's 2017 Honda. We take it everywhere because its more comfortable to ride in.

I still get creeped out by my Iphone listening to me everyday and sending me targeted ads.

Mine's a 2003 Honda, too (a CRV), with well over 200k miles on it. I adore it.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Tangential, but one problem with having older cars is it gets harder and harder to find a shop to fix them. The sibling drives a 1999 Sable, and our one-time-reliable shop has outright said they can't help her anymore because you just can't find the parts. (There's a guy down the valley who deals more with older cars who gave the car good service the last couple times she went there.) The last time she went to the one-time-reliable shop for a new thing to pop her gas tank cover open (because you can't just manually open the gas cover on a 99 Sable; if the spring thing can't be activated by the lever thing in the cabin you're SOL on filling your tank), they scrounged up the last part they could find in the area, possibly the entire state. I think that was when they decided they just couldn't deal with a car that old and hard to scrounge parts for anymore.

And that's a car without computerized-everything (and we all know how fast computer stuff goes obsolete - and there's little to no chance of someone tinkering together a custom replacement in the shop).

I have to wonder how many cars made today will last that long... and how long a maintenance life they'll have before it's impossible for most shops to service them. Heck, I wonder if, along with all these tracking doodads that are nearly impossible to disable, they'll install a kill-switch on the things to force turnover. (Not sure I'd put it past 'em if they could get away with it... or pay only a slap-on-the-wrist/hardly-a-dent-in-profit fine...)

This data collection reminds me of something I heard, "If you get a service for free, then YOU are the product."

These days, even when you pay, you're the product...

 

[RedRajah]

Planned/manufactured obsolescence is real :-/

 

[BustedPrinter]

Mine's a 2003 Honda, too (a CRV), with well over 200k miles on it. I adore it.

That is too funny... that is what I got, a Honda CRV with 190,000 miles on it. My mechanic says he has known some to go up to 450,000 miles! He also said it is the only car he has NEVER put a wheel bearing in

I prefer the older versions because they do not have the new transmissions that make using cruise control hard to use, even on the interstate. And the inside of the car is better arranged making them far more comfortable. And what other car has the foresight to make a folding table out of the floor of the back area? Okay, so the automatic transmission shift lever is kind of goofy, but other than that, I love this car. They go forever and with four wheel drive, go everywhere!

These cars are so reliable that you see them everywhere and they are 20 plus years old!

It would be too funny if yours was silver like mine!

 

[mrsmig]

Hah - mine is deep blue.

I test-drove a new CRV in 2020, right before lockdown happened, and was thisclose to buying it - but didn't.* I just didn't love it. I loathe the current design trend toward wraparound consoles, smaller, sloped windows, and jellybean profile. The new car made me feel pinned in. So I'm still driving the 2003, with its boxy shape, big windows and lots of space inside. Who cares if it doesn't have built-in Bluetooth or wifi or even a USB port. It's got a six-disc CD player that still works great!


*good thing, too, because it would have sat in the driveway for two years.

 

[Introversion]

Related news:

Connected cars’ illegal data collection and use now on FTC’s “radar”

The Federal Trade Commission's Office of Technology has issued a warning to automakers that sell connected cars. Companies that offer such products "do not have the free license to monetize people’s information beyond purposes needed to provide their requested product or service," it wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. Just because executives and investors want recurring revenue streams, that does not "outweigh the need for meaningful privacy safeguards," the FTC wrote.