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Automatic Transmission – a data-privacy study of connected vehicles

262 points · 235 comments · rafaelc

  1. hattar · · focus · HN ↗
    I currently drive a mid 2000s Ford truck, which runs great and meets my needs, but lately I got interested in minivans/people carriers. I pretty quickly realized that newer vehicles seem to not just record, but export a lot of driving data.

    The minivan market is small. There are really only 4-5 available and every single one sends telemetry data from the car and makes it hard/impossible to opt out of selling your data. Additionally, without pretty extensive work there is no means of physically disabling the telemetry, which forces you to trust they'll honor your opt out request (vs re-enabling it with some update).

    I'm clearly in the vast minority on this, but it's so frustrating that there are no options beyond buying and installing a third-party bypass to disable this type of tracking. Worse, I'm aware that the absence of data is data itself. Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy?

    1. sounds · · focus · HN ↗
      The connectivity may not be fully disabled in a 2025 Acura Integra, but there is a way to disable data sharing. You then have a permanent yellow "nag icon" top right on your infotainment screen, but the spying is "disabled."

      I posted this originally in the other discussion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=49956395">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=49956395

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