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by effluvium 780 days ago
I have money to buy a new car, but I won't. Back in my day this was called spyware.

"Toyota says they can collect a whole heap of personal information on you through your car, the Toyota app, and their connected services. This includes everything from personally identifying information such as name, address, phone number, email, online identifier, social media ID, and demographic information such as your age, to driving behavior such as acceleration and speed, steering, and breaking functionality, and travel direction, to lots of information about your car including VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), interior and exterior image data from cameras and sensors in your car, facial geometric features. They even can collect sensitive personal information such as precise geolocation data, biometric information. On top of all this, they say they can collect lots of information about you from other sources such as social media, public sources, data brokers, data providers, your friends, and more. Toyota is collecting a whole lot of information on you. Oh, and if you use any of those mobile services like SiriusXM radio, wi-fi connectivity, navigation, or even let your insurance track your usage, well, those places can all collect your personal information too."

...

"In May, 2023 Toyota admitted that it had left the location data of over 2 million Toyota and Lexus users exposed and unsecured for ten years. A couple weeks later, Toyota again admitted it left the data of another 260,000 car owners exposed in a different security incident. "

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/toyota/

1 comments

How hard would it be to pop the hood and disconnect the antennas?
There's a single fuse which disables the entire tracking capability. It's labelled "DCS" in the internal fuse block.

I absolutely LOVE my Camry hybrid — it is quick (not fast).

I did some casual searching on disabling Toyota Dealer Communications System (DCS). The results of that search was not informative.

I highly doubt that just pulling that fuse will disable Toyota's tracking. I'd suspect their tracking is tied into either the infotainment system, OBD, or the PCM. So when you go to the dealer they notice it not working, they put in a fuse, pull your stored data, and remove the fuse again.

With every company being anti-consumer, presume the worst until otherwise proven.

Also pulling that fuse would likely void a warranty.

Post script: It's fun driving a 20+ year old car with a V8. Modern naturally aspirated I4 don't stand a chance. And I'm typically neck to neck with turboed I4 and naturally aspirated V6. People in their shiny new cars losing to a 20 plus year old rust bucket is amusing to me.

You are correct that even if you pull the fuse a modern Toyota does still have a "black box" which could be physically accessed (e.g.) after an accident occurs.

I'll bet an AWD Camry hybrid would be quicker than your 20 year old V8 =D

Things would start malfunctioning. The hardware is being used for various required safety stuff.

Automakers have decided that since it’s already there, they might as well use it for other things too. This is a problem that has to be fixed by regulation, not by yanking on stuff. Also, the antenna is never under the hood.