alt Hacker NewsCan I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
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Related: Mozilla did a review of different cars for privacy:
(https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/arti...)
>Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. [Their privacy policy] includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.”
Internet-connected cars are a national security issue when manufacturers are from one country (A) and consumer is in another country (B). For example, the President of country A might wake up in a bad mood and order to disable all A-manufactured cars in B until they reconsider the trade deal. Or, he might order to collect geolocation, plugged for charging smartphone data, audio and video recordings from cars in B belonging to military personnel.
Smart cars can record street views, location of WiFi access points and GSM towers, and this data is useful for guiding missiles and drones when GPS is being jammed.
And how can we deal with this? Inspections on import? Country-level DPI to block data exfiltration? But DPI is not perfect because there are obfuscation and VPNs. And today we have Starlinks as well, which are difficult to block. Except from banning foreign smart cars altogether, there seems to be no simple solution. Or maybe oblige the manufacturer to use local computer boards and software when importing cars?
Reminds me of Zed's setting { "disable_ai": true } [1]
Glad it's an option be it for regulatory compliance, security, privacy, or any combination of the three.
I remember yanking out the onstar unit in my 2015 silverado to physically disconnect the cell antenna. This was (is?) the only practical way to disable cellular in that vehicle.
Kudos to Rivian for making this a supported user privacy feature.
The user wants to "disable data collection". The manufacturer offers only a kill switch for all connectivity, with all the unwanted effects (which they helpfully list).
I've seen this pattern before. It's a lame cop-out. "Of course you can do that, but you'll have to accept all these negative consequences. There's nothing we can do about it. You brought this onto yourself."
Disabling internet connectivity disables lane keeping assistance. I wonder if this is a dark pattern to punish users who opt out or because they feel they need reports of crashes ahead to do it safely.
Website redirects to the regional homepage instead of showing the actual article. I don't get why this is still a thing.
In the UK, this URL simply redirects to the UK version of the homepage, sadly.
For anyone in the same situation, https://web.archive.org/web/20260430234304/https://rivian.co... leads to the correct page.
Amusingly, my Cupra Born has all its connectivity disabled... because Cupra Australia just didn't want to bring it to this country. Not a bad thing really, aside from the annoying red notification dot telling me I have no signal!
Why cant users disable connectivity elsewhere other thsn canada? People are supposed to call their car dealer each time after car update before turning it off again? Seems to be a cheap pr stunt to portray canadian regulation in attempt to shed good light on rivian
I still don't understand why this isn't treated as a national security threat. If X bad guy wanted to do devastating damage to the US Economy during a wartime situation, even a day "burb" in transportation would swing the tide of a war, let alone permanently disabling thousands of workers from getting to their jobs.
Cell connected vehicles are unnecessary and a danger for so many reasons.
Are there any electric cars that don't need internet connectivity via wifi/esim at all? I'm looking for something really simple. A chassis, four wheels, an engine, airbags. Basically my current ICE car, just electric.
We all know selling your information to 3rd parties is a virtual goldmine. Either Rivian is doing much better than expected in the luxury space or they're unaware of the value of this data. There's no evidence of old fashioned goodwill here.
On a single device or within a surrounding area like a walking EMP zone? now thatd be useful.
It would have been much better to be able to disable telemetry without losing basic functionality such as navigation and safety updates. Having to choose between being spied on and having no connectivity at all is a false dichotomy.
Show me where I can rip out the antennae/modem, otherwise you’re all talk.
> limit or disable certain functionality in the vehicle (e.g., navigation, lane keeping assistance (…)
Curious why lane keeping assistance would need to communicate externally. Isn’t all this processed in the vehicle?
My 2026 Kia EV comes with an "offline mode" in the settings, which disables all the connected features in the car, including OTA updates. I wonder if this sufficiently insulates me from their spying?
Easiest way to protect against data collection is replace the antenna with a 50Ω resistor cap.
Interesting how the question is about disabling collection, but the answer is about connectivity.
Fisker launched that feature over a year ago
>For non-Canadian vehicles, you may reach out to Rivian Service to request that we disable the eSIM card in the vehicle through a service appointment.
Why is that? I really don't want to bring it to the shop to turn off the radio. In Canada it's a toggle in the settings. Is there Canadian legislation mandating this or something?
Why the hell would disabling internet connectivity disable lane-keeping assist? O.o
Props to them. I'm holding onto an old car partially cause of this. Aside from semi theoretical problems like privacy and attack vectors, car tech is constantly annoying.
Very tangentially related- Does Rivian put software licenses in the OS UI somewhere? Couldn't find it when I was playing with my friend's car. Seems odd if it is android-based...
This is the sign of a company who listens to their customers. They have received feedback saying some people don't want a connected car, so they make it an option.
"Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
Vehicle connectivity is a core feature .. blah blah blah"
I absolutely hate these kind of answers. I understand why the answer is written that way, but i truly hate it to the core. They are marketing speak/CYA answers.
Why i hate it? Because i do not mind the communication, but i absolotely do mind the collecting and harvesting.
I don't want to lose connectivity. I want to lose all the effing data harvesting. I don't mind leaving data and using navigation, but i do not want the data effing harvested.
I want to have phone calls, but i do not want my calls logged for a long time so that these logs can be abused in any form by someone or something.
ALL of these features do NOT need long time logging for it to function.
This pay-with-your-privacy system has to stop.
in response to most of this thread, the answer is summed up in one word.
greed
tesla let you do this too - they would pull the e-sim. They mentioned that wifi would automatically connect to tesla hotspots at the dealer.
If they can make it a toggle for Canadian vehicles, why do you need to schedule an appointment in the US? Obviously it's so they can try to talk you out of it, but c'mon, just give everyone a toggle.
Annoying how it doesn't disable the cell modem from registering to a network (in Canada). So no it doesn't provide any tracking protection. Or at least that is how it sounds.
It was expensive but every day I am happy with my Rivian purchase. Great to have a vehicle where the actual users are obviously thought of (contra for instance the cybertruck where some variety 'cool factor' was obviously prioritized, resulting in finger crunching hoods and such).
Aside from this you may also consider that newer cars are sending out unencrypted but digitally signed data via ITS (in Europe) or DSRC/C-V2X (USA) that potentially anybody with an antenna can collect.
That includes positional data, speed, whether you're pressing the gas pedal or braking etc. Since it is meant as a Car-to-Car solution, e.g. to warn other cars when there is an accident the reach isn't great, but some of the signals (e.g. warning of a traffic jam) may be propagated by other cars.
See this German talk on the European system: https://media.ccc.de/v/glt26-688-c-its-mit-einem-esp32-ampel...
I think they have a English translation or dub somewhere
buy a car manufactured before 2004 :P
alternatively, how old should the car be so i know there is no data being collected?
Cars before the enshitification, already had tons of security issues, I remember watching a hacker stopping a BMW the reports was driving in the middle of the highway.
This was decades and decades ago, imagine now??
When I bought a 2025 Suzuki Jimny XL, I wanted a car, not a computer on wheels.
- physical buttons everywhere
- head unit is the only touch screen
- Non-invasive safety features
- No firmware update
- No internet connection
- No enshitification
It is what cars used to be back in the day with minor modern touch like LED headlight. Its headlight does not have direct connection to the ECU.
Toyota cars, especially the new ones can be stolen by breaking the headlight and using its harness to talk with the ECU. Virtually speaking, all Toyota cars are being stolen like hotcake in Australia.
People buying these EVs do not understand how deep it goes buying a car you do not own.
Testa has done this over and over, removed features from the car via OTA update. Car was never meant to be a computer on wheel.
Does it improve things or break things?
I wish Tesla did this.
This is, in a word, crap. We give you a fake option to turn off data and make it egregious by killing features that shouldn't need it like lane keeping. How about instead a real privacy option that actually is true? 'Block identification'. 'disable sim when not in use'. 'no server side storage'. And, yes, do allow turning off all data and NOT from a service call, just a simple option. Also don't block features that clearly don't need that like lane following.
Having ranted a bit though, in the world of car companies an official policy on how to turn data off is amazing. The bar is so low right now that it is crazy to think this terrible implementation riddled with dark patterns is a 'win'. These companies need to be shut down.
Reading comments, I expectantly see a lot of cheering for this step, with many calling for further measures. I understand that privacy features are important to some people, but I am not one of them.
Can someone provide what needs these feature covers? Like, what are some reason to disable all internet connectivity?
I am genuinely curious.
> For non-Canadian vehicles, you may reach out to Rivian Service to request that we disable the eSIM card in the vehicle through a service appointment.
I certainly appreciate that disabling network connectivity is even possible, but a bit scummy that non-Canadians have to make an in-person service appointment.
Is there some Canadian law at play here that requires they permit Canadians to disable this easily from the GUI? Would love legislation like that in the US.
can this be done on a tesla ?
I’m still very happy with my 2024 4Runner, one of the purchases I never regretted a single bit, I did have a Sony head unit installed for a larger screen with support of wireless Apple CarPlay, and that’s enough tech in a car for me. My wife keeps complaining about its lack of auto lane keeping but I’m ok with it bc I enjoy driving it.
excellent.
Hope to see more of this.
How about also adding Android Auto as well? Oh no, it'd take away their "control the user experience" power-tripping.
> limit or disable certain functionality in the vehicle: ... over-the-air updates, which provide new ... safety enhancements ...
I wonder what happens if you disable the e-SIM (in the US) and then a safety recall appears via software update - do dealers have any way to update control modules besides OTA?
This is a huge unresolved issue with EVs IMO; ICE cars are required to provide emissions-relevant updates over software which can operate using a J2534 passthrough device, which effectively means powertrain modules have to allow (potentially signed) updates over CAN using software that can be obtained by an end user (a lot of people don't know this; for almost any ICE car in the US, you can buy a 3-day or 1-week subscription to the dealership level diagnostic software for a somewhat reasonable fee and use it with a J2534 device).
But for EVs, there's no such rule and as far as I can tell it's entirely a gray area in the US now; the NHTSA require a "remedy" for recalls but nobody seems to have pushed back to determine whether OTA is truly a remedy. The traditional autos all offer dealerships as a backup option, but Tesla and Rivian have several recalls with only OTA remedies already. This seems sketchy.