Carmakers are failing the privacy test. Owners have little to no control of the data they hand over

slaps the hood of my 03 Acura shitbox type S
Yep, she's a keeper.
- Yeah I plan to drive my Corolla shitbox into the ground. The only problem with my plan is that the earth will only be around for a few hundred million years. Maybe a few billion? And (as long as you do the maintenance on time) Corollas will last until the heat death of the universe.

Its sad. I LOVE the concept of smart devices, the fact that you can do things so much more conveniently with little interaction. They can absolutely be done without being privacy nightmares, but apparently companies are not interested in that.
- And apparently neither are consumers
  
  I don't care about my data. I have nothing to hide. Haha they can have my data if they want.
  Literally everyone i know
  
  In the case of cars there isn't really an alternative. The study the article cites looked at a bunch of different manufacturers and found the all sucked for privacy.
- Same. I've been slowly adding more and more smart devices to my Home Assistant instance and seeing it all interact is super neat. That said, the search for products that work 100% local and don't depend on the cloud is a total pain, outside of some products using the Zigbee standard and such.
  
  Zigbee and z-wave is the way to go, yeah. They work completely local and disconnected from the internet (in fact, they cannot directly connect to the internet).

I post this a second time because this post is more active. What can we do to stop the transfer of data? Can we disconnect the antenna/modem that connects the cars to the Internet?
- I know my vehicle has a fuse to pull to disconnect the modem.
- Dont buy the car.
  
  Thanks for the advice, I'll just walk 26 miles to work each day I guess...
  
  That would've been possible when consumers had a choice but now it's too late.

This has been one of the major reasons I have no desire to buy a new car. I do not want a $30k IoT device that spies on me. Unfortunately, that is pretty much the norm now.
If/when I am forced to buy another, I’ll be looking hard into which ones are the easiest to rip the modem out of. Can’t be an IoT spying device without the internet.
- I’m looking into restomods myself. No need to buy a new car and rip it up.
- I wonder what your insurance company would say about that.
  
  People modify their cars all the time and my insurance company has no business tracking everything I do either.
  
  Fuck that insurance company. When mine shipped a couple of OBD-II connection boxes for us to install for our auto insurance, I sent them back. They told me I wouldn't get their special discount if I didn't install the trackers in our 2 vehicles. I said I'm not installing your tracker boxes regardless. I continue to have car insurance, and those alleged discounts didn't really amount to much.

I'm reposting this in every thread so anyone can see:
https://www.nissanusa.com/privacy.html
Sensitive personal information, including driver’s license number, national or state identification number, citizenship status, immigration status, race, national origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, sexual activity, precise geolocation, health diagnosis data, and genetic information.
- Not sure why Nissan needs my sexual activity data but I can maliciously comply and make them regret asking for it.
  
  Keep sending images of goatse. But seriously speaking, it's probably not humans that are collating and sifting the data. It's all being fed to an algorithm.
- Wtf. Genetic information. So they can take your DNA after bringing your car in for service and sell it?
  
  You joke, but I could see some bean counting fuck being all over that business idea
- sexual activity
  What the fuck?
  
  Yes, exactly
  
  What how where and when

This is why GM is looking to remove android auto and Apple CarPlay. No mediator between them and your data
- Sure there is its called a screwdriver and it goes directly through the computer!
- Lol no. They want to remove easy access to digital services so they can charge for their own.
  
  Right. That too

Can't really go into depth, but I worked for a major automaker, privacy is a joke for newer cars even if you don't pay for the Internet plans.
- Is there anything a mildly competent electronics enthusiast could do to disable any outbound data?
  
  Unfortunately not for the company I worked for, all I will say is it was one of the top 5 automakers in the world.
  I assume the others were also doing similar things in their cars.
  
  I unplugged the cellular modem in mine. But it was made last decade, so they probably make those harder to find now.

- If you suck your salesman off to get a better deal, daddy Nissan knows 😏
- Nissan also said it collected information on “sexual activity.” It didn’t explain how.
  Nissan doesn’t provide a detailed explanation of how the data is collected, but they say that the source they collect the data is "Direct contact with users and Nissan employees," Whatever that means.
  Based on this information, I can only infer that the Nissan sales handbook has a section on using seduction for particularly difficult and/or hot potential customers.
  …I used to work at a pizza shop. Oh, so that's why we got so many orders from the local Nissan dealership!

Are dumb cars still manufactured? I don't drive so I have no clue what the market's like.

Holy god. I'm not letting go of my '09 carolla and ebike. What the fuck.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
But drivers are given little or no control over the personal data their vehicles collect, researchers for the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation said Wednesday in their latest "Privacy Not Included" survey Security standards are also vague, a big concern given automakers' track record of susceptibility to hacking.
Cars scored worst for privacy among more than a dozen product categories -- including fitness trackers, reproductive-health apps, smart speakers and other connected home appliances -- that Mozilla has studied since 2017.
The absence of such a law lets connected devices and smartphones amass data for tailored ad targeting and other marketing -- while also raising the odds of massive information theft through cybersecurity breaches.
Japan-based Nissan astounded researchers with the level of honesty and detailed breakdowns of data collection its privacy notice provides, a stark contrast with Big Tech companies such as Facebook or Google.
Further, Nissan says it can share "inferences" drawn from the data to create profiles "reflecting the consumer's preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behaviour, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes."
If an owner opts out of data collection, Tesla's privacy notice says the company may not be able to notify drivers "in real time" of issues that could result in "reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability."
The original article contains 874 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

One of the reasons I got a motorcycle instead.
- When Tesla came about ,I said privacy in cars is going to be a problem in the the future if people keep buying them and nobody protests. Well, we are now in that future. Crotch rockets may be our salvation.
  
  So many health insurance companies would be going public with fat IPOs. Nothing like motorcycles to make the line go sky-high, lol.
  My mom worked in the ER back in the day. Any patients dying of organ failure without a donor just had to make it to the weekend to live (seriously, not joking). People would dust off their cycles for the weekend and then donate and save lives.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
But drivers are given little or no control over the personal data their vehicles collect, researchers for the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation said Wednesday in their latest "Privacy Not Included" survey Security standards are also vague, a big concern given automakers' track record of susceptibility to hacking.
Cars scored worst for privacy among more than a dozen product categories -- including fitness trackers, reproductive-health apps, smart speakers and other connected home appliances -- that Mozilla has studied since 2017.
The absence of such a law lets connected devices and smartphones amass data for tailored ad targeting and other marketing -- while also raising the odds of massive information theft through cybersecurity breaches.
Japan-based Nissan astounded researchers with the level of honesty and detailed breakdowns of data collection its privacy notice provides, a stark contrast with Big Tech companies such as Facebook or Google.
Further, Nissan says it can share "inferences" drawn from the data to create profiles "reflecting the consumer's preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behaviour, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes."
If an owner opts out of data collection, Tesla's privacy notice says the company may not be able to notify drivers "in real time" of issues that could result in "reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability."
The original article contains 874 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Be me
Siemens Charger
People using my wifi to get work done
Cool story, bro
Oh, look, somebody thought the tracks were a cool place to park
No parking zone will be enforced with extreme prejudice.