How the most popular cars in the US track drivers | Hacker News Reader

How the most popular cars in the US track drivers

wired.com

138 pointsarkadiyt178 comments

It’s becoming impossible to practice what you preach when it comes to data privacy. ‘Don’t like it, don’t buy it’ is difficult to execute unless you don’t mind not having a car, mobile phone, tv, browse the internet or even go out in a public place.

There needs to be regulation and at least the ability to at least easily opt out of any of this insanity, but until there’s one (or probably many) widespread data-breaches related to this total abuse of power, so I suspect we’re at least a decade off that, if it even happens at all.

Edit: location Australia, where political power is toothless due to the small scale of our country. Maybe we can fall in-line with GDPR or something someday, but currently there’s almost no discourse related to privacy (yet everyone is losing their minds over tiktok)

The EU seems to have it's act together. Things in the US won't change until the elites feel that pervasive surveillance impacts them personally and negatively.

Did you miss the story about how spying on journalists is OK?

Yes, the EU is doing what needs to be done (criminalizing end-to-end encryption) /s

imo, if you don't want the government to track you, the battle is already lost, but there is probably room to limit what private companies are allowed to do on the regulatory front.

The problem here is that governments themselves became dependent on the insane amount of user tracking these companies do, to the point where it is against their own ‘best interests’ to stop these practices. Stuff like this happens all over the place—even the EU—under the guise of stopping terrorism and/or child pornography.

I'm actually less concerned about the government tracking me than I am about corporations or other private entities tracking me.

Remeber the uproar over cameras on phones? Then the fury over a person bringing a google glass into a bathroom. Now people film themselves in the bathroom.

No one cares as we live in a very connected world where privacy is almost gone - in fact many people like broadcasting themselves. (To add - I don't like nor endorse it - "computas shoulda stayed hard!" is my motto. But that is reality. Hell, my friends kids ape youtubers and they're just 6 or 7 years old. I find it gross they find it cute. go figure. poh-tay-toe poh-toh-toe)

I’m not sure that your neighbours kids voluntary use of an app versus me not being able to buy a car that won’t track my location are really all that equivalent.

If you don’t want to be tracked then you have to make sacrifices on the scale of not carrying around a cellphone. But that really doesn’t scale.

Handing out your customers secrets doesn’t have a big red flag that automatically tells them you’re selling them out. That’s the core issue which has nothing to do with customer choices and why regulation is one of the few ways to give customers informed choices.

Name any major organisation that’s not selling data excluding companies such as signal and (presumably) apple…

That's ok, but there should always be transparency in who is collecting the data and the chain-of-custody of data collected. The ad agencies and everyone affilliated thrive in the current darkness...

Sorry that’s a valid point, my point is that I’d like to not have my data sold in the first place,

Google, Facebook, Microsoft

You don’t think they’re selling the data to other departments internally?

The only reason those 3 aren't selling data is that they have the vertical integration to launder and monetize it themselves.

They don't have to sell it, because they can keep it, productize it, and then sell the targeting information to advertisers, without revealing the underlying data.

Imagine a Google, Facebook, or Microsoft without an ad network and devices/apps to serve it on.

Then tell me they wouldn't immediately be selling their tracking data to anyone who would buy.

Yes, but that's because they do the dirty work themselves. The dirty work is still being done. It's marginally better that they don't "sell" the data, but their collection and use of it is still horrible.

Not carrying a cell phone is a pretty huge sacrifice now—it’s almost to the point where you have to have one in order to participate in society.

Giving up cellphones isn’t as big deal as you’re suggesting. At work and at home you can call or email em, they’re only out of contract for a few hours a day.

Being required to hand over cellphones when entering a secure facility makes them far less appealing.

Parent was likely talking about activities for which there is only a "mobile app" solution, with no fall-back human option.

The usual pattern is:

1. Company releases mobile app

2. Company directs users to mobile app, for data collection purposes, and releases new physical activities app-first. Backup, non-app methods are an afterthought

3. At some point, the non-app methods are so broken, under/unstaffed, that they're functionally useless

Consequently, you now can't do the thing without a device.

Do you have any examples? I’ve only seen something vaguely like that with Reddit.

I don't use my cellphone for anything like this, so I'm acutely aware of those things in my area.

Around here, not using cellphone apps means that you can't use about 10% of vending machines, about 33% of parking spots, and in some apartment complexes, the inability to use the laundry room.

That's about it, at least that I've seen. So far, all of that amounts to slight inconveniences.

I can't easily send money to an arbitrary person via Zelle because my bank only allows that through their app. Website only supports requesting that they mail a paper check to that person which will take some time.

I prefer not to have any connection between my phone, which is easily lost, and any financial data.

I actually disagree -- it's sneakily become a BIG deal to fully participate in society (esp post covid). Here's three real-world examples in a row:

Took my partner out on a date downtown last Saturday night. Dinner and a show.

Gotta have an app or at the least mobile browser to pay to park. No parking meters or out of order.

Gotta have a camera/mobile browser to scan the menu at the restaurant. No more paper menus.

Gotta have a phone to show your ticket to get into the theater. No more paper tickets. Just got bounced back and forth between staff when I tried.

It's so many little things like this that have crept up -- especially in the last couple years. It's just assumed that everyone has a working charged phone in their pocket at all times now.

Sure, can you get by and survive? Of course! But it's gonna be a giant pain in the ass and you're gonna be "that guy" to the people around you. Which again... pretty big sacrifice.

> If you don’t want to be tracked then you have to make sacrifices on the scale of not carrying around a cellphone.

If that's all that was required, I'd be thrilled.

The parsimonious explanation is that most people do not care about this issue as much as you do, which suggests quite plainly that no such regulation is necessary. You might want to consider that your views on privacy are eccentric and unpopular and that nobody is asking for laws to "protect them" from something that doesn't bother them in the first place.

You’re kind of suggesting that most people understand this issue and still don’t care about it. I suspect that’s very much not the case.

Like with leaded gasoline, a lack of major public outcry does not imply there’s no need for government regulation.

Indeed. People cannot be said to be making a choice when they're uninformed about the relevant details.

Study after study has shown that the general public has no idea about how their data is bought and sold, beyond "Oh, yeah, some tracking is done."

Chain of custody and user visible notification would change that.

Not "data may be used by third parties" but rather "{Toyota} sold your {radio listening data} to {iHeartRadio} on {6/23/2023}."

https://archive.is/9IU8W

I've got an old (2002) car, I love the buttons and knobs. No cameras, no screens, no key fob, no voice control, no electronic "safety" features, no tracking. The 4L straight six engine is still going strong at almost 300,000 miles.

What's funny is watching my friends attempt to back out of the driveway or parking lot without a camera and screen. They put it in reverse and their eyes go right to the center console, expecting a screen, then they dart from mirror to mirror, unsure of what to do or where to look or how to judge, and they keep glancing at the dash, as if a screen is going to magically appear.

At no point do they just throw their arm on the backside of the passenger seat, and turn around to look out the windows while keeping one hand on the wheel. It is as if this movement, this posture, is completely new to them. Asking them to use just one side view mirror to back all the way out of a gently curved driveway would be impossible. They need the digital guidance lines on the screen to go in reverse.

2010 car here. Maintaining it well to reach >=300k. New cars also have oil-burning issues and I anticipate difficulty of obtaining parts due to large, diverse BOMs from all those useless features.

The scrap yards are very efficient at pulling out all those parts and selling them. Any reasonably popular vehicle you shouldn’t have a problem sourcing parts.

That’s great for you, but there’s been amazing advances in the world of automobile safety in the past 20 years. I’d rather improve my safety chances in an accident than worry about “tracking”.

Why is it a forced choice?

This is a false choice. There is no reason that safety would require commercial surveillance. Also, why did you put the word tracking in quotation marks?

They put it in quotes because no one is using these data to follow any individual’s life or movements. These days are all aggregated and/or anonymized before any detailed analysis.

Yeah they put tracking in our cars without telling us, but I'll trust them they won't do individual tracking because they pinky swear it. Unless law enforcement requests that data, but luckily cops only go after bad people, and there's no such thing as politically motivated prosecution.

Then it should be no big deal for a few concerned folks to opt out.

Tell that to Jim Farley, the Ford executive who infamously observed, "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing." He then issued possibly one of the most unconvincing retractions in the history of corporate newspeak the next day.

How can this days be properly anonymized? Even just knowing where a car is parked every night narrowed it down a good bit in most areas, combiner that with where its parked during work hours and you're almost certainly anonymized.

And yes, the analytics do track vehicle identifiers aren't truly anonymous. Many of the services Onstar offers, for example, wouldn't be possible without taking via unique identifier. The same goes for any vehicle that offers 4G/5G, mobile apps, remote unlocking, etc.

I agree with this, and I think it's analogous to the 2021 Catholic Grindr tracking saga [0].

It would be difficult to keep this type of data safe (in the sense of not allowing someone to use it to exploit a private person) without all the exigencies of "running a business" in 2023. Once you add those considerations, it seems impossible.

Even if GP is correct and companies all anonymize the data before analysis (which I absolutely do not believe), I am still concerned with:

1) Sale to outside parties including government, 2) Rogue employee with a grudge or a side business, 3) Data breach, 4) Internal policy change (juice revenue with DTC marketing?)

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/22/data-ph...

I agree, but that's not what the parent to whom I was responding to was describing. They said were holding on to their old car because of how simple and lacking of any tracking it had. I would prefer a newer car with better safety features even if it came with tracking.

Would I love a non tracking safer car? Sure, but options are pretty limited. You're saying it's a false choice to a statement I wasn't making.

Agreed. I don’t understand the privacy obsession at the cost of all other comforts and features.

Maybe you should read a bit more about why the lack of privacy is a risk.

I would start by searching YouTube for “don’t talk to the police”.

I guess that's how they get ya!

The opposite can be argued too, I don't get the obsession with convenience above all else.

Personally I'd rather know that the government and private corporations can't track everything I do and decide that I should no longer have the right to drive my own car.

2005 CR-V coming up on 230K miles and still runs like a top. I did add a CarPlay-capable head unit that has a connection for a rear-view camera (which I haven’t gotten and probably won’t).

Wireless CarPlay is pretty big usability and modest safety improvement (to have a 7” map display and voice control instead of futzing with a phone to get GPS guidance).

My car has wireless CarPlay, and ONLY wireless. I hate it.

I can not share my data with my wife while I'm connected to CarPlay.

Do you know if your 2002 has side-impact anti-intrusion bars in the doors?

I loved my 1999 Isuzu Amigo, and was sad when I was rear-ended in 2017 and had to get rid of it, but that fender bender probably saved my life.

I replaced the Amigo with a 2014 Outlander Sport and in 2019 I was t-boned at an intersection, with the other car driving directly into my driver's side door. I was amazed to find that I escaped without a scratch. I did some research and found that the Amigo had terrible side-impact safety ratings; if I was still driving the Amigo I probably would have been crushed.

In 2007 (effective 2009), the NHTSA mandated that all new vehicles have anti-intrusion bars in doors. That bar saved me.

I think there's a sweet-spot in the mid-2010s when vehicles were being built with efficiency, safety, and durability in mind and weren't yet being festooned with computerized junk.

You're leaving out the punchline of your reply: those side-impact bars protect passengers better, but they also make the car windows higher, and reduce visibility. It's harder to see out the back of modern cars when you simply turn your body around and look behind you. That's why backup cameras are becoming mandatory in new cars.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Before the accident, I would have taken bigger windows over the side-impact bars if I'd been presented with the choice. And now I'm thankful to the regulators for taking away that freedom of choice. Odd.

A teaching moment. Sometimes the regulators actually do know what's best.

I am often frustrated at the poor visibility out of modern cars and I wonder how many crashes are caused by the poor visibility. It is the other side of the tradeoff that crash survivability data will not show- how many crashes would have been avoided altogether with better visibility.

Had a near miss today with a cyclist who was covered by the giant windshield pillars

I lived in Europe for a few years and was really struck by the focus on protecting pedestrians rather than drivers

Entire compact cars can be obscured by the a pillar in my 2018 vehicle. Textbook case of unintended consequences.

You are supposed to move your head around enough to see around the pillars

Honest question - Would you rather have had the knowledge of the pros and cons of different designs, or the lack of freedom of choice when regulators know what's best for you?

Pre-covid, I drove a low slung coupe. My roof was roughly equal in height to most people’s windowsill. I was fine with it.

Post covid, I drive a midsize suv, and am no longer comfortable riding my motorcycle.

What has changed? Simple - the other drivers. I now often witness an accident almost daily. I had a car wipe out in front of me last week. I constantly have drivers blindly merging into my lane.

I don’t know what the long term effects of covid are, but I’m pretty sure they include the removal of awareness that other drivers exist on the road, as well as basic human decency.

I used to joke that when I was driving on the west coast, I’d have to remove my turn signal as I’d have the car behind immediately speed up to cut me off.

Sadly, this has now become the reality here on the east coast also.

Do you think those are side effects of covid itself or more related to our pandemic response (lock downs, closing schools, WFH, vaccines, or something else)?

This was pre-pandemic response, but for a few years I drove a Toyota MR2 and had a couple motorcycles. I feel pretty damn lucky to never have seen what would have happened to me wrecking any of those vehicles.

How'd the MR2 drive? I've had one of those on my quirk to-buy list for awhile.

I loved that car, it was a second gen turbo with t-tops. It's effectively a street legal go-cart, actually very si.ilar to an early Lotus Elise if you've ever driven one.

I never had issues with it spinning around on my, though I was always very aware of how centered the weight balance was so it was clear when I was getting close to the edge.

I'd take a car like that over a true high performance vehicle any day. Taking a fast turn on public street at legal speeds was more engaging than doing 110 in a Corvette on a track in my opinion.

I had a Miata second gen 6-speed for a few years, and 110% agree on the fun level of street legal go-carts, over heavier but more powerful.

Thanks for the impression. I'll make sure to test drive one if the opportunity comes up.

RIP Miata/del Sol/Elise/MR2/S2000/CRX era

A person after my own heart! I ended up with an MR2 but very seriously considered every single car on that list

Had the same car.

Crashed it once, bought the exact same model cash the following week.

Oh those were the days. Miatas too cheap to meter.

I've always wanted to drive one of those. Sadly, it will probably never happen now.

My personal favorite was a beat-up manual C5 vette. Clutch drops at 6k all day long. Seat sliders were broken so it would wobble around rather alarmingly. Mufflers stolen by some hoodlums.

Incredibly fun.

When I was 15 my mom's boyfriend wanted to impress me. We went for a ride in his candy cane C5 one evening, hit 118mph on the interstate on ramp.

Really gave me an appreciation for that powertrain...my mom was less appreciative.

Come to think of it, that's probably part of why I loved the thrill of an MR2 when technically driving at legal speeds

I agree, small, low slung manual cars let you have fun without breaking too many laws. You can’t do that with modern cars anymore. I took a c7z for a test drive. Took it sideways going ~75mph, but the car was completely numb and unfeeling. I knew that it wasn’t the car for me, because I’d kill myself or someone else trying to eke a thrill out of it.

Who knows? There have definitely been plenty of studies showing that we're seeing more inflammation and I have definitely felt like people in general are getting "dumber". Likely a mix of several factors.

I'd rather have some of column A and some of column B, honestly.

Yep that's totally fair. I passed the question as an either/or but the real world answer is almost certainly in the middle somewhere

I like considering the extreme first, but mostly as a gutted check to see which ends of that spectrum I'd favor when finding the right balance

If the regulators really knew what's best, wouldn't they push to reduce the overall frame size of vehicles, rather than allowing monster SUVs to take over the highways all over these United States?

I just watched a video where they lined up about a dozen small children sitting in front of an SUV, and the driver could not see any of them through the windshield.

If visibility is a problem, then personal cars are too large. It seems like a simple fix. Or we could throw wads of technology at the wall and see what sticks?

If regulators knew what was best, I honestly think they would stop acting as though that can define what is best for hundreds of millions of people with a shortlist of laws.

Life is complicated. Our country is diverse in population, culture, environment, etc. What's good for some of not good for all.

The fact that there are multiple competing ideas of how to best design a car for safety is case in point. Larger frames and door reinforcement makes sense for intrusion protection, but the oposite makes sense to favor visibility. Which approach is considered so good as to make a legal requirement, and what options aren't included in that choice?

I'd be happy to see our government heavily fund unbiased research and public education. In this example, learn what different car designs do for safety and tell the public. Allows us to make our own decisions, empowered with a better understanding of what our options are.

Like these?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Cr...

For reference the 9000 entered the US market in the mid 80s

Yes. According to wikipedia, they were invented by GM in 1969, but it seems they didn't become a standard safety feature until the 2000s.

This was my take when people suggest older cars as an alternative. Safety has improved dramatically in the past 20-30 years, especially with side impacts where fatalities or serious injury can be common. It's one of the few reservations I have when driving my '91 BMW.

Yeah, this resonates. I don't need maximum comfort in my vehicle, and I don't think the electronic and technology features are necessary. But I do think about safety and I do have reservations when driving, depending on where I'm going and how I need to drive to get there. I do know that if I was t-boned I'd be toast, and I often think about buying a new car just for the upgrades with airbags, materials, construction, etc. But the joy of driving the car, the familiarity and feel of the car on the road in all weather, the intuition behind the wheel...I just really love it.

2005 Honda Civic LX w/ under 100,000 KM on it. In Canada, but first (and only previous) owner spent winter in Arizona and there has been no previous winter driving.

Car is a champ. I can adjust everything via tactile controls. Sensors exist, but fewer sensors. (Note, this next sentence is me talking out of my ass) There is a whole industry built on replacing faulty sensors that are not detecting the fault they were designed to test for.

Folks may note that a car of this vintage lacks safety features. This car has airbags, ABS and seat-belts. It does not have most of these features [0] built in; the driver is responsible for these features where possible. I'm fine w/ that.

Regular maintenance includes oil change and inspection of components due to age. I've got a great mechanic who factors age into his maintenance recommendations. My annual operating cost, including fuel, insurance, maintenance and parking for 2023 YTD is CAD$1880.

Mobile phone is used via ear bud. That has its own tracking issues but at least does not correlate to car-based telemetry.

[0] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/guide-to-safety-...

There has been a smaller advance in actual crash safety since 2000 than there was between 1980 and 2000. The only big leap forward since then was rollover standards where vehicles above a certain weight must be able to support their entire gross weight on their roof. Essentially any car designed and certified after 1998 is safe enough in an actual impact to prevent death or major injury barring structural failure like rust that compromises the crash cell and crumple zones. Most modern safety features introduced since the early 1980s are actually proactive rather than reactive in that they aim to prevent errant behaviour rather than protect from dangerous situations. Blind spot monitoring, lane change assist, and backup cameras for example are all proactive versus seatbealts, airbags, and crumple zones which are reactive.

2004 is around the last time we had mechanically simple cars with majority reactive safety systems and cars made before that cutoff date are getting increasingly more expensive to both enthusiasts and used purchasers.

To be fair, they probably don't realize you can see out the back. On most modern vehicles, you simply can't.

Reversing is very easy thanks to side mirrors, but you can't see the kid you're about to run over.

Why would you you “safety” features in quotes?

I'm talking about things like: eyesight assists, automatic braking, side view mirrors that flash and light up constantly, etc. My wife has a new car with all of these features, and they're incredibly distracting. The car brakes automatically in parking lots when it sees shadows, beeps endlessly anytime it sees a curb while in reverse, and alarms anytime she so much as scratches her eye while driving because the software decided she's distracted or her eyes aren't on the road.

I know a lot of people have different experiences with this stuff, and I'm sure the features have saved asses a few times, but she can't stand it. And for me, when the car is constantly alarming, and I have to constantly look at the screen to figure out why, it makes me hesitate while driving and I feel less confident on the road.

You might have a dud or something because that just doesn't happen in modern cars.

Interesting that deep in the settings you can find tolerances or thresholds for so many of these, then.

Some makes, like tesla, are anecdotally very bad. But on my VW, and my mom's toyota, it only ever warns about anything if you are actually doing something that isn't safe driving. I have had maybe one false alarm in 20k miles.

A lot of people are technically awful drivers but haven't been in an accident, so they think they are fine.

Sure, doesn't mean it's an issue for the vast majority of people.

This is one of the most hacker news comments of all time.

Absolutely critical levels of "kids these days."

"Driving was better before it was easy!" It must be exhausting to think this way.

You describe your friends' relying on technology to solve their problems in a condescending tone, yet they simply adapted to a world that is changing. When most of the cars they use already have the digital guidance, there is no point not using them, and still "throw their arm on the backside of the passenger seat, and turn around to look out the windows", which is way less efficient. Imagine you are planning a trip from California to Colorado. Are you gonna study paper maps and remember all the turns before go like old days just in case your phone would die sporadically? No, you don't spend an hour of your life to prepare for an event with 0.01% probability. Same for your friends.

Maintaining an awareness of your surroundings is a fundamental skill required for driving. If people have become so dependent on technological aids that when they drive a car without them, they fail to maintain awareness of their surroundings, that is a failure as a driver that is fully worthy of condescension. They're exhibiting a laziness or incompetence that puts others around them at risk.

I've found the backup camera to be such a significant upgrade to backing out. I drive a hatchback, so a smallish car in today's world. When I'm in a parking lot, I'm inevitably surrounded by two giant fuck off bro-dozers that block all possibility of seeing anything around me, while the backup camera is mounted on my car's rear and has a fisheye-esque lens, meaning I can back to just the point where the rear is aligned with the cars around me, and I can see the entire lane of the parking lot, and thus can easily see if cars or people are coming.

This is something you just cannot do by "looking behind you" because you are 3 feet forward of that camera. You cannot see the parking lot lane until you are already intruding into it. The awareness you get from that camera is just strictly better than you get from your eyes alone.

> At no point do they just throw their arm on the backside of the passenger seat, and turn around to look out the windows while keeping one hand on the wheel. It is as if this movement, this posture, is completely new to them.

As a point of reference, Adam and Jamie of Mythbuster fame both had to be trained in this technique. And they’ve probably been driving longer than many of us here have been alive.

In other words, it’s a trained driving position. Some folks learned it early, some late, and others haven’t been trained in it yet.

Also, it doesn’t work well in modern vehicles with shorter windows. This last week I couldn’t see the driveway I had to back down by looking out the back window. I could via the camera though.

> As a point of reference, Adam and Jamie of Mythbuster fame both had to be trained in this technique. And they’ve probably been driving longer than many of us here have been alive.

If I remember right, didn't they have to be trained how to use this technique in a specific scenario that was effectively stung driving? If be really surprised if they couldn't back out of a parking dodge this way prior to training

> Also, it doesn’t work well in modern vehicles with shorter windows

This is largely by design. Intrusion protection has been prioritized over visibility with cameras filling in the gaps

> The 4L straight six engine...

Surely the mpg is excellent, and so are the emissions... (And don't call me Shirley!)

Oh the MPG is bad, emissions pass every time I renew! It's just a workhorse of an engine. It always starts and even in its old age has never left me stranded.

Are there any new cars / car brands that credibly promise not to track their drivers?

Any car with a network connection for software updates seems likely to be harvesting driver data, or is at least capable of doing so.

I HIGHLY doubt there are any that make that promise.

Are there any industries/companies who don't somehow track users these days?

Essentially, no. Your best bets are the German manufacturers, some of whom (e.g. Porsche) have data opt outs for all services and exist within a legislative framework that's at least mildly protective of consumer privacy. Even then you should be wary about cars built for export to other markets like the US. It's common for the regional manufacturer to be a separate legal entity, with separate backend services, delivering cars with different configurations and software.

For American, Japanese, and Korean manufacturers? You should just assume they're harvesting all the data they can get on you. GM's recent decision to ditch Android auto and Carplay was motivated in large part by their desire to better control and monetize user data collection.

Japan's privacy laws are fairly strict and, to some degree, interoperate with GDPR.

For context, I've a Toyota GR86 where opting out of data sharing can be done via an app.

(Edits for some extra context)

https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/images/doc/Toyota%20-%20Co...

> (i) the Connected Services Privacy Notice located at www.Toyota.com/privacyvts (“Privacy Notice”). Carefully review the Privacy Notice as it applies to your personal information and Vehicle (as defined below) data that we collect, use, store, share and secure to provide the Services. Please note that your Vehicle comes with a data communication module (“DCM”) that enables the Wireless/GPS Technology, as described in Section 11(a), and allows for the collection of data from you and your vehicle (e.g., location, health and driving data). BY DEFAULT, THE DCM IS ON/ACTIVE WHEN YOUR VEHICLE IS DELIVERED AND WILL REMAIN ON/ACTIVE (AND CONTINUE TO COLLECT DATA FROM YOU AND YOUR VEHICLE) UNTIL YOU CONTACT US AND REQUEST THAT IT BE DEACTIVATED.

> (b) DCM. If you cancel your Service Plan, we have the right (but, unless you ask us to, not the obligation) to turn off your DCM as of the effective date of cancellation. Once your DCM is turned off, the Vehicle will not send any data to Toyota. Depending on the connectivity to your Vehicle, your DCM may deactivate immediately, or it may take up to several days.

The GR86 forums have a few people also looking at ways to outright disconnect the hardware for this kind of stuff entirely, but I believe that's slow going - haven't kept up on it. I just have the above saved since I look at this stuff when buying any new car these days.

The obvious disclaimer applies that you may enter warranty hell if you're disabling it, because it's 2023 and I guess society is fine with this level of default tracking. You should confirm how it affects you before changing anything. Otherwise, hope people find it helpful!

> opting out of data sharing can be done via an app.

Oh, the irony.

As the owner of a new Toyota who received a phone call from our dealer because Toyota contacted them about a (routine) maintenance alert from our vehicle… the car / app combination is a privacy nightmare.

They offer an opt out, and that’s good, but by the gods their default is insane.

I mean, you can also contact them - per my quoted text. The app is just easier if you don't feel like dealing with tracking things down. ;P

But yes, in general, the defaults on all new modern vehicles are a nightmare.

> Your best bets are the German manufacturers, some of whom (e.g. Porsche) have data opt outs for all services and exist within a legislative framework

Funnily enough that car in white at the center of the picture in the WIRED article is a Porsche (the most luxurious and less sold of all the Porsche models: the Panamera).

Your can pull a fuse (I think it's marked DCM?) in some Toyotas if you don't care about the entertainment/navigation system ever contacting a cell tower again. I pulled the one in my 2021 Tundra.

I pulled a fuse out of my car to disable the onstar module because they were sending me "monthly diagnostic report" emails. I had never made an onstar account, and I even declined the free trial.

If they hadn't sent me those diagnostics I would not have guessed they were tracking me in the first place. Too bad they outed themselves, this time at least :)

Yes, our 2021 Mazda lets you opt out in two ways.

1. Every time you start the car, you can navigate into the system menus to deactivate data collection and transmission.

2. Call customer support, give them your VIN, and follow up in a week or two. That’s what we did.

Alternatively, I suppose you could just pull the SIM card or its fuse.

Waiting for The Framework Car.

Don't know about others, but European car manufacturers are under strict regulations and try their damn best to not record anything as it immediately becomes a liability.

Edit: I know at least a few companies have a test vehicle program that operates under different rules, but those are not sold to general public. So the company receive high quality data without getting into trouble with GDPR.

> Are there any new cars / car brands that credibly promise not to track their drivers?

Not that I can find. It's why I won't be buying any cars made this century.

They conveniently leave out Tesla.

Fun fact: when the Chinese president is visiting an area, all Teslas are moved.

Example: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...

For many cars it's relatively straight-forward to disable the cellular modem, and sometimes it won't impact the other functionality of the car at all.

Chances are someone in a forum somewhere has done the legwork for you. Do a google search and realize how easy (or hard) it is to do for your vehicle. Most of the time it won't even impact your warranty, apart from the modem you've purposefully disabled and no longer care about.

Sure, but once it becomes widespread it will no longer be possible to do so on newer models.

I don't think this is true. In theory you could embed the cellular modem into the mainboard, or even into the processor, but I would bet for ease of service that the modem will always be on a separate board somewhere that can be cut off.

They would never make the car reliant on cellular service or it would just stop working whenever you didn't have a signal - or the modem died.

How would the manufacturer enforce this? The first time someone gets stranded somewhere because the cellular hardware died and the car refused to start... well, sounds like a huge lawsuit to me.

There will always be an antenna somewhere. Remove/destroy that, or put a faraday cage around it, and it doesn't matter what the manufacturer wants.

FYI, you can get the user manual of the car and find where the fuses are. One of the fuses will likely control the cellular system. Pull the fuse, no more data.

Ok, but what about when you take it in for service and the first step in the service manual is to verify connectivity, which they do. There car then uploads it's backlog of data.

To each their own, but my recommendation is to not go to the dealer after buying the car (unless it's to fix something expensive covered under warranty). I recommend finding a good mechanic.

That said, I'm not pretending this is a perfect solution. But it's good enough for me and it can probably help other people as well.

Except that is the same modem that is used to call emergency services when you get into an accident.

True, but that's something I'd happily do without in exchange for not being spied on.

It's sad that some of us even feel compelled to assess this tradeoff.

I feel for you.

It’s not ‘when’ it’s ‘if’. And let’s be honest here, if you get into an accident, someone else is already calling 911 as well.

So in exchange for being spied, your data sold to third parties (likely), and knowing every place you visit at every time and know your movement patterns better than anyone, you get the protection of someone calling you, (if it’s a serious accident you’re probably not answering and if you’re answering, you can probably dial a cellphone. At least 9/10 of the 1/100000 chances of a serious accident).

Just curious if the trade off is still worth it for you? I don’t know, I know I don’t.

Computing as a whole has obliterated user agency. This is just one of many manifestations of a system run rampant, where consumers can't even begin to understand what it is their purchasing & using. It's not a free market - the market can't adjust - if buyers can't even learn what they are buying.

I do hope some day we can make computing more visible & honest.

100%. And if it's not obscure enough, the ever-connected high-speed internet takes care that it remains so.

It's essential to disable the "always on" cellular modems in these cars. They're always buried very deep but the antennas have to be near the surface. That's the best attack point.

I think the title may have been altered as it was almost verging upon a garden-path sentence.

You could have a bit of fun with the headline "Toyota and Honda Track Car Drivers Driving Driving Alarm"

Cap off the RF connector with a 50 ohm terminator.

Can you not just physically disconnect or shield the network antenna (assuming you own the car outright, i suppose if it's financed it might be trickier to do that legally)?

The same pipe that exfiltrates tracking data is bringing in the data for all the connected features of your car. That would include things like satellite radio, onboard navigation/GPS, software updates/recalls, and concierge/safety services (e.g. OnStar). In some cases, the same data is being used to both track you and provide the service, because the collection is happening somewhere on the backend. I wouldn't be surprised if many cars eventually broke in strange ways or displayed dashboard errors when you did this. The network connection is a pretty fundamental part of the vehicle software architecture and a lot of things depend on it.

If you're lucky enough that your car can continue indefinitely without a network connection, it's possible that you wouldn't notice these features being gone. Realistically though, most people would. The solution here needs to be legislative action to protect consumer privacy. Technological solutions fall short.

The network connection is a pretty fundamental part of the vehicle software architecture and a lot of things depend on it.

Which is very worrying when you stop and think about it. If anything that actually matters is reliant on anything not travelling with you then that can not be a good sign for the safety and security of the vehicle. For one thing any vehicle that has any open incoming connectivity of any kind immediately has an attack vector for malware. And in this case that could literally be a matter of life and death and it could literally be used to attack thousands or even millions of vehicles simultaneously.

The closest I can think of to any legitimate phone home feature is an automatic emergency call function that is triggered by a collision or theft being detected. But of course it's very easy to specify that those features may only be activated from the vehicle side and may only be used to contact emergency services.

Anything else like GPS or infotainment does not need to be integrated at all with the essential vehicle systems or emergency communications functions and can be subject to the usual safeguards like any other device - including an off switch if the owner chooses not to use it and requirements to opt in for any potentially intrusive behaviour.

I should clarify that when I say it's a fundamental part of the architecture, I don't mean in the sense that it becomes unsafe or nonfunctional in the absence of one. Rather, I mean that it's a fundamental communication mode you have to consider when engineering a vehicle, just like cellular internet is a fundamental consideration for mobile OS architecture despite the existence of airplane mode. Hardware is selected in part to support the feature, storage is chosen to support log retention goals assuming periodic offloading, etc.

Whether it's unsafe, or a potential security vector, or has any number of other undesirable properties will depend on the specifics. Every vehicle is a highly heterogeneous distributed system, so the systems I've had a hand in designing may look very different than a different platform within the same company, let alone a different manufacturer.

But yes, every vehicle should remain safe without a network connection and privacy should be not only available, but the default.

> is bringing in the data for all the connected features of your car.

Which is fine for me and others like me. I don't want any of those connected features to begin with.

You can pull a fuse in at least some Toyotas.

What a fantastic dystopian fascist nightmare we’re are all accepting.

And it is amazing that you can get some remakes to protest and boycott bud light over some gender bullshit but no one will bother boycotting something as evil as the surveillance state.

It's bizarre that a site ostensibly about privacy requires you to disclose the VIN of a specific vehicle to see the make and model privacy notes.

True. You can randomize the last few digits, though, and it'll still work.

https://archive.ph/9IU8W

2019 car here, equipped with a rear camera. Been driving for 43 years and I refuse to use the cam. The thing that bothers me is now I have to check the mfg connectivity TOS and must opt out instead of opt in to what data is transmitted - it’s ridiculous. Don’t get me started on the ever increasing software subscription services these manufacturers are trying to levy on consumers.

What does refusing to use the rear view camera have to do with data collection? Those were added because kids were getting run over and killed by reversing vehicles. It seems irresponsible to not check it (along with all the other normal checks you do when reversing).

Reverse cameras are one of the best things to happen to automobile safety in a long time. The automatic obstacle detection and braking is so great. I’m delighted that it’s such a success that it’s standard in every new car.

> Reverse cameras are one of the best things to happen to automobile safety in a long time.

I agree, but I feel like cameras have made everyone feel the need to back into parking spaces, resulting in an epidemic of slightly askew cars that make it more difficult for everyone else to park. It's a small price to pay for increased safety, but it's stilkl annoying.

Hmm I can see that being a thing. I’d find it annoying. I don’t feel like I see the trend in my locale.

I do like that the camera makes lining up cars easier (if you’re competent and care) I get these lines that curve when my wheels are turned. And I use them to line up with the space. It actually makes backing in feel nicer… makes me look like I know what I’m doing….

Or am I the person you’re talking about! ;)

I feel like cameras have made everyone feel the need to back into parking spaces, resulting in an epidemic of slightly askew cars that make it more difficult for everyone else to park.

Where I come from (the UK) drivers are routinely taught to reverse into most types of space or small driveway and drive out forwards because it is better for both manoeuvrability and driver vision. If you can't manage to perform some basic manoeuvres involving reversing during your driving test then you fail. We do not have an epidemic of slightly askew cars in car parks and the worst offenders for less than parallel parking are often the drivers who were too lazy to reverse in and instead tried to swing in forwards when they didn't have enough space to straighten up properly afterwards.

360 overhead parking views fix that problem, but they aren’t mandated yet.

Good point. I find that view to be far more useful than any other, though I'm never sure if that's my video game bias showing or not.

I have a hard to park situation in my garage, so both are very useful.

> I feel like cameras have made everyone feel the need to back into parking spaces

As a bicyclist, I hate it when people do this, and it's become increasingly common.

The problem is that people don't look when they pull out of parking spaces, so when I'm on a bike in a parking lot, I keep a close eye on the backup lights so I can avoid that car. When people park head-out, that critical signal is no longer visible to me.

I've nearly been hit by people pulling out of spot they parked head-out in a couple of times now as a result.

It is now standard (at least in the US) because it was mandated by law (in 2007). USDOT took some sweet time to implement it, but it was required by 2018.

> Those were added because kids were getting run over and killed by reversing vehicles

If you cannot see kids by looking at your rear window and using your side mirrors (don't know how they're called in english), your clearance might be too high and your mirrors poorly set.

You can't see out the rear window in any new car because the bottom of the window is always ridiculously high (I assume for safety in rear end collisions).

The main reason is that it makes you feel safer. Psychologically you feel more protected with metal between you and the outside world than glass.

That just isn't true. There are many cars where it's impossible from within the car to see certain places behind it without the rear camera, no matter how your mirrors are set.

That's why you check behind the car (and all around it) before you get in and start moving.

Kids are mobile.

If you have a HGV or a bus, i understand why you would need a rearview camera. Or with an utility vehicle with high or now windows. I doubt that's what OP is driving though, i would guess he has a normal car and does not need to do heavy duty.

When i'm driving my father's utility vehicle, i can only use my side mirrors, so i'm extra careful, but with any normal car i ever drove, even large one like a Xantia, i don't see how i could have missed anybody who can move on two legs.

The only time I've used a rearview camera was on my SO "new beetle", and we both find it quite useless (i was seeing better turning my head).

All vehicles have rear blind spots when it comes to short objects (i.e. children), with SUVs and pickups being significantly worse than standard cars.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/03/the-danger-of-bl...

Even standard cars are bad these days. I don’t get much from my review mirror at all, especially compared to the Subaru I had in the late 90s. Pillar placement in a unibody might have something to do with it, rear windows also seem smaller.

There are many cars where it's impossible from within the car to see certain places behind it without the rear camera, no matter how your mirrors are set.

I have never seen any car where it is possible. The entire rear section of the vehicle would have to be transparent and any passengers or cargo behind the driver would have to turn invisible when you went into reverse.

Refusing to use the backup camera is one of those peculiar boomerisms. Every boomer I know refuses to use them and everyone that I know that refuses to use them is a boomer.

I know a lot of boomers, and none of them avoid using backup cameras. Generalizations are error-prone.

Aren’t rearview cameras required now for new cars in the United States for safety reasons? Hope you don’t live around anyone too short.

TIL: https://www.thedrive.com/news/20612/rearview-cameras-are-now...

In the good ole USA, vehicles are also getting larger (massive market to satisfy the insecurities of millions of Americans) and manufacturers are pushing them down American throats to get around the CAFE regulations. [1]

Since they are getting larger, this means the view from the front is obscured. In most SUVs and trucks, 8-9 children can be sitting in front of a modern truck or SUV before you see a child's head. There's been some talk about forcing FRONT view cameras as well. [2]

It's absolutely disgusting. I hate cars. I hate how transportation is largely car centric.

[1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/04/04/buttigiegs-new-emissi...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

Children should obviously carry a 10ft orange flag whenever they’re around cars. If not, it’s their fault if they get hit.

I don’t get this. The rear view camera on my 2019 vehicle is a joy to use. What data could it transmit that I or anyone cares about? I truly don’t understand the privacy obsession. Most people don’t matter, and chances are there’s absolutely no novel or interesting data gathered.

> What data could it transmit that I or anyone cares about?

The question is what data does it need to transmit. The answer is none. Rear cameras and tracking are entirely unrelated, though I'm sure car manufacturers will try to convince us tracking is essential for a camera to function. They'd try to convince us tracking is essential for windshield wipers, if those weren't around since long before tracking.

> Most people don’t matter, and chances are there’s absolutely no novel or interesting data gathered.

Spoken like someone who never had to worry about politics, and whose current political system is only free of corruption and tyranny (to some extent) thanks to the actions of people who did have something to hide. Actions your attitude makes much harder.

It's like pollution. One day you or someone will find some information of public interest, for example a spy agency targeting dissidents, an industrial farm illegally using antibiotics to speed growth while antibiotic-resistant bacteria decimate hospital patients, or a million other such things. You'll try to leak it anonymously to the press, because the international conglomerate you work for could retaliate, but you'll realize you can't so much as back out of your driveway without ten cameras recording your face and of everyone around you and selling your network of contacts to ten different information brokers, that then sell it on to governments or private security forces. You can't get within a mile of a journalist without that being recorded somewhere.

Contacting anyone with your phone is even worse - because you've set up your phone with "nothing to hide" in mind.

Correct. All this is not going to matter until it suddenly does.

Rear view cameras are a safety feature. You’re not sticking it to anyone by refusing to look at it.

I understand that you’re upset about data collection, but refusing to use a basic safety feature is a pointless protest. The only people who might be harmed are those around you.

Please reconsider.

I recall reading/seeing somewhere that rear windows are getting smaller in newer models, so you could be putting pedestrians at risk by not using the rear camera.

Who cares though? I ask this elsewhere here too, so apologies if I am being redundant.

Everything tracks me. My phone, every neighbors camera pointing out toward the street, the eyes in the sky, office buildings, grocery stores.

I don’t care though, because I am no one. It’s such a non problem or issue for my day to day, and I couldn’t imagine choosing my car over something like this.

However, on HN, I constantly see this privacy obsession in comments. What are you all up to that you care so much? Where’s the paranoia coming from?

That's the problem, you don't care until you do.

No that’s not a good answer. It’s a vague gesture at some non realistic threat. When will I care?

You'll care when the political winds shift in your country and your leaders don't like people of your race, religion, or sexual orientation, or perhaps one of your leisure activities, like the kinds of books you read or email newsletters you subscribe to. Meanwhile, there's all this data floating around that "proves" you the kind of person they don't like.

And everyone seems to think this could never happen to them, until it does.

Even if you are squeaky clean, the data on you could have errors, and your government -- with the best of intentions, even -- could misinterpret the data in ways that could cause you a lot of trouble. This isn't even a "what if?" type scenario; this sort of thing already happens to people.

Edit: your top-level comment got flagged and killed, but I vouched it back to life. I completely disagree with your views here, but I think it's valuable and important that we talk about things like this.

When you run for office and realize the party in power knows literally everything about you, and is using it to find dirt on you (and they're free to take all they find out of context), and target you for legal investigations, play six degrees of Kevin Bacon to link you to child molesters, and countless other dirty tricky you didn't even know existed, while you and your upstart new party know next to nothing about your opponents in power.

But who needs more than one or two parties?

Its bizarre to see the "I have nothing to hide, so why should I care" defense on the top of Hacker News.

Post Scriptum:

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. - Cardinal Richelieu

You have to move to feel the chains.

That’s not what I am saying, actually. I think tracking should be illegal. But I don’t live in a fantasy world. My point was that in our real world, where everything already tracks me, who cares?

>That’s not what I am saying, actually. I think tracking should be illegal. But I don’t live in a fantasy world. My point was that in our real world, where everything already tracks me, who cares?

I do. I'm not a secretive person (in fact, should we meet down the pub, I'll probably tell you way more about me than you want to know), but I am a private person. That is to say that I don't hide who I am or what I do/say/think, but I want it to be my choice as to whom I share such information.

Or, to be more concise: My business is my business, not anyone else's.

Pervasive tracking is incredibly annoying. And while I do some things to protect my privacy (custom android roms, ad/tracker blockers, both local and network-based, disable GPS/location services on my phone, aggressively manage cookies and a raft of other things I either do or don't do to minimize leakage of my life), I have to put up with some tracking (my cellular provider needs to track my phone or they can't connect calls, deliver data, etc.) because I'm not interested in squatting in a lean-to out in the woods somewhere.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it or, more to your point, not care about it.

Edit: Clarified prose.

My point was that in our real world, where everything already tracks me, who cares?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Also even if tracking you is of no special interest to anyone and you personally do not mind there will still be people who affect you where those things will certainly not be true. You have elected representatives with the power to make laws that can profoundly affect you. There are professionals like doctors and engineers and law enforcement officers whose professional conduct and judgement are matters of public safety. There are investigative journalists who provide important checks on the power of others in our society. There are whistleblowers who might become vital sources for any of the above to do their work based on good information. None of these people should be subject to inappropriate influence and any intrusion into their privacy compromises that.

For me, it’s partially about being uncomfortable with faceless individuals and companies profiting off information about me in an extremely opaque way.

It’s also about feeling that there’s no chain-of-custody regarding that sort of data. It gets dispersed and could seemingly end up anywhere, and at any point in the future in perpetuity.

I think it’s natural for people who are inclined to visit this site to have a greater interest in tech-related privacy than people who don’t visit. Particularly when you have a greater level of awareness when it comes to just how invasive many tech companies are, and how willing they are to sell your data.

Do you close the door in public restrooms? I mean, we’re all human, we know what you’re doing in there, but you might just prefer to have some privacy anyhow.

Some of us feel the same way about our digital interactions.

To understand why some people care, I think it's useful to separate immediate real-life concerns, and more abstract, larger picture concerns. As an individual with limited energy, empathy, and frankly a finite lifespan, caring about this constantly is probably not productive, or healthy. This changes when we're talking about where the world is going, how different societies compare, in time or in different places. Then suddenly larger concerns like the general erosion of privacy, the global change in climate, and the rise and acceptance of extremist ideologies make sense.

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