Connected cars are all around us and what they’re quietly doing is sending gigabytes of data home. In this case, home starts as the automaker itself, but that data doesn’t always stay there.
In some cases, that data appears to be the reason why automakers deny warranty claims. In other cases, that data goes to third parties that want to sell you things. In especially shady situations, the information about how you drive goes to data brokers.
Earlier this year, a report exposed that several automakers were selling personal driving data to companies like Lexis Nexis that would then build a “Driver Score” around the person in question.
That score would then have a potentially huge impact on insurance premiums for those individuals. It might be a reason why you’re paying higher premiums now as opposed to a year or two ago. If you’re curious if your car was keeping tabs on you you can request your Lexis Nexis record here. Once you receive it, look for the “Telematics” report.
You don’t have to settle for simply knowing what’s in that report, though. You can stop sending data to automakers and in turn third-party companies too. Surveys suggest that almost all owners believe that their data should remain with them and in their control.
That might not be reasonable but opting out is still very much on the table. Here’s how to do it in 22 different car brands.
GM (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC)
Once again, General Motors fell into some hot water earlier this year when it was discovered that the automaker sent data to data brokers. In late June, it ended its OnStar Smart Driver data collection services as a result.
For now, it appears as though GM vehicles don’t collect personal data. There’s no way to be sure it didn’t collect data from drivers prior to March 20, 2024, though so again, check into your Lexis Nexis record if you’re concerned.
Ford (Lincoln)
Ford requires users to disable data sharing from within the vehicle’s infotainment system.
- Select Settings on your vehicle’s SYNC screen.
- Choose Connectivity.
- Tap Connected Vehicle Features.
- Toggle Off to disable Share Vehicle Data.
- Press Continue on the confirmation prompt.
Here’s a helpful video:
Stellantis (Jeep, Dodge, RAM, Alfa Romeo, Fiat)
Opting out of data collection is a bit more tricky with Stellantis customers. First, owners can only opt out by going online to their Connected Services account. So, if you’re an owner without such an account you’ll need to make one first.
Disabling services there doesn’t include what Stellantis brands call “De-identified or aggregate data.” If one wants to actually sever the vehicle’s ability to collect this data they’ll have some major downsides to deal with.
First, the only way to do it is to make an old-fashioned phone call to 800-800-2813 and ask to “Cancel for Privacy Reasons.” Here’s what Stellantis says will happen after that.
This will result in the deactivation of your wireless transmission network service and will cease your access to most Connected Services features, including (if applicable) the SiriusXM Guardian safety and convenience services. It will also prevent updates to your in-vehicle manual and the implementation of any Wi-Fi services through the Vehicle.
That’s right, forget about software updates if you go this route. It also mentions that canceling one’s SiriusXM Guardian subscription doesn’t achieve the same goal as “canceling for privacy reasons.”
Toyota (Toyota and Lexus)
Despite the bad press surrounding Toyota’s application of its own warranty policies, disabling data collection is quite easy. Owners can literally hit the SOS button from inside the car and just ask the person who answers to opt out of Connected Services.
When you lease or buy a vehicle equipped with Connected Services, data collection is active. You may opt-out of Connected Services or request deactivation of data transmission at any time (a) by contacting us via the “SOS” button in your vehicle, (b) by calling Customer Care, or (c) via your Toyota App, and we will no longer collect certain Location Data, Driving Data, Vehicle Health Data, and Account Information.
Honda (Honda And Acura)
Honda and Acura make the process a tad more difficult as one has to contact them to disable data and there is no special single button in the car to accomplish it.
When you buy a vehicle equipped with Connected Vehicle Technologies and Services, data collection may be active. You may deactivate certain of the Connected Vehicle Technologies and Services at any time by contacting us and following the directions provided to you, in which event we will no longer collect the Covered Information related to the deactivated Connected Vehicle Technologies and Services.
Those instructions mentioned above ultimately take customers to a setting in the infotainment menu labeled “Data Sharing Setting.” There, users can flip the switch to “OFF”.
That’s not the end of the road though because for as long as you have data sharing off, you’ll get a big orange notification at the top of the screen encouraging you to turn it back on as one owner found.
Tesla
Interestingly, Tesla seems to collect data but claims that it doesn’t connect that data to a VIN number or owner account. At the same time, it allows users to go ahead and turn off data collection should they desire that. The only way to do it appears to be through the vehicle infotainment system.
Within your vehicle’s touchscreen you may enable or disable the collection of certain vehicle data (Software > Data Sharing), including Autopilot Analytics & Improvements and Road Segment Data Analytics.
Tesla also allows users to request their data or have it deleted altogether. Of course, a somewhat damning report from Reuters in 2023 unveiled that Tesla employees could gain access to connected cameras video recording so take the automaker’s promises to mean whatever you want.
Hyundai (Hyundai, Kia, Genesis)
Hyundai, Genesis, and Kia also have ties to companies like Lexis Nexis. In the case of Hyundai, it appears as though a Drive Score program is no longer working but Bluelink still collects data. Here’s how to stop that.
1. Reset Bluelink to factory settings via the infotainment system – go to Bluelink in settings and select ‘Deactivate Bluelink’ and reset to factory settings; and
2. If you have connected your smartphone to your vehicle, you also need to cancel or terminate your Bluelink subscription via the Bluelink App. In the Bluelink App, go to ‘My Account’ and select ‘Terminate My Account’.
You can refer to the Bluelink User Manual or visit hyundai.com/au/en/owning/bluelink for more information. Alternatively, the new owner can contact Hyundai on 1800 186 306 for any questions or enquires.
Once the account is deactivated, the owner will receive a SMS confirming their Bluelink account is no longer active.
Kia Connect still has an option to work with Lexis Nexis but thankfully, can be turned off easily too.
Go to “Account Overview” in your “Kia Connect Subscriptions” page in the Kia Owner’s Portal and click “Cancel Subscriptions” or call our Call Center at (844) 886-9411.
Genesis requires you to tell it if you don’t want it to share your personal information with third parties. You can do that here. At the same time, stopping its connected services from working in the car is as easy as navigating to the “Connected Services” page online and then canceling the subscription. Of course, you’ll need a Genesis account to do that.
Volkswagen
Car-Net is the ‘service’ that VW offers to customers for a time and then charges as a subscription-based package. It, like all the rest of these, collects data about location, speed, braking, and more. To turn it off you’ll have to unsubscribe through the myVW app.
You can cancel your Car-Net paid subscriptions through the Account tab in the myVW mobile app.
In the Account tab:
- Tap Vehicle Management
- Select the vehicle you would like to make changes to
- Tap the subscription tab to view, edit, or cancel current subscriptions
Porsche
Of all the brands here, Porsche might be the most flexible when it comes to these options. It has several data-sharing choices in the Porsche Connect App. Users can disable GPS location data, Google Analytics, and more. In fact, late-model Porsches have a “Private Mode.”
For example, the car can be set to ‘Private Mode’ from the driver’s seat with a single click. In this mode, only those data transmissions are made which are legally required or are necessary for the operation of the car, for example an eCall.
Mercedes
As for Mercedes, things are slightly less transparent. The automaker enables the end user to turn off some features through its website and others require calling or emailing Mercedes itself.
“You may be able to opt out of the collection of data via certain Mercedes me connect services by deactivating those specific services through the Mercedes me connect portal. Please note opt out and deactivation rights may be limited to Vehicle owners, lessees, or their designees. Contact Mercedes me connect Support for additional information on how to opt out of data collection or deactivating services: 1 (800) 367-6372 or me-connect.usa@cac.mercedes-benz.com.”
BMW
Finally, BMW enables customers to turn off the collection of data in the infotainment system as well. The automaker goes as far as to say that users can disable the SIM card that is responsible for enabling the data connection.
BMW customers may opt out of ALL optional data collection relating to their vehicles at any time by visiting the BMW iDrive screen in their vehicle. In addition, BMW drivers may, at any time, completely disable the transfer of any data from BMW vehicles to BMW services by disabling their embedded SIM on their vehicles via contacting BMW and completing a form.
Potential Downsides
If you’ve read this far you’ve already heard some of the major drawbacks to limiting data transmission. Many of these companies build their systems in a way that forces customers to pick between having no access to desirable features unless they’re willing to give up all of their data.
Want to be able to unlock your car remotely if you lock your keys inside? The automaker probably needs to be able to collect how fast you drive and then send that to third parties. Make sense? Not to us either. Nevertheless, that’s the trade-off some are actively (or ignorantly) making.
Thanks, needed this article.
So I called the Stellantis 800 number, (appaerntly it is for Mopar dealers, entering five 1’s for a dealer code got me to a human) to forever cut the communications in my month old ’23 Last Call F8 Challenger. By VIN, the 4G has never been activated, the car shows as “not communicating” as per the nice woman on the phone this AM.
I’ll pull the Lexis-Nexis report in year and verify that!
I was looking at a used Chevy Volt for a while, and this was one of the prepurchase things I researched. Despite the fact that you can ask GM nicely to not collect data, there is also a way to get under the dash, remove one of the electronic boxes, remove the OnStar modem card, and put the module back. I guess this is the case for many modern OnStar vehicles. Just pulling the fuse apparently disables a bunch of other navigation / infotainment stuff, so disconnecting the modem seemed like the best way.
Ended up going with a Mazda 3 (an ostensibly cheaper car) because the Volt was terrible to drive.
It’s no Mazda3, but I’m surprised the Volt was that terrible to drive. I got a 2nd-gen Volt as a sort of stopgap, admittedly with low expectations for what’s basically a Cruze with batteries tacked on, and it’s way better to drive than I expected. Instant throttle response, relatively low and central CoG.
It was a 2nd gen Volt that I test drove for 24 hours. It’s entirely possible that it was just the one I drove, but the steering was awful. There was a split second delay between steering input and response. It was on the order of milliseconds, but noticable. After a while it felt like driving a boat. It actually made me nauseous.
Even worse, with rapid steering (quick lane change, etc ) the steering was nonlinear. Meaning that there was the short delay, then the car would start to turn, and then after another half second or so, the turn rate would increase even more and the car would turn in sharper. The steering was overall very unsettling. Quick research suggested some alignment issues that might be what I felt, but it wasn’t something I wanted to deal with.
Acceleration and brakes were unremarkable, but fine.
One of my cars is a Toyota Corolla, so I understand appliance-car mushy handling, but this was far worse.
That definitely sounds like something was going on with that specific car. It’s normally on the numb side, but no weird delays.
One perk of keeping a vehicle whose cell network has gone away. It’s definitely not phoning home over the 3G modem anymore.
I solve this problem by having a BMW from 1995 which is barely smart enough to run the engine on its own. A nice side effect of that is that it’s also very rewarding to drive, because I handle most aspects of the driving, from shifting my own gears to being my own stability control.
Anyone know if older Audis (2016-2020) share data?
Same question about 2015 Fit. I can’t imagine it’s an issue.
My 2016 S5 has a permanently greyed out 2G symbol on the (non-touch) screen. I hope to keep it forever.
They don’t stay out of a shop running & drivable long enough to transmit data…
My 2017 (112k miles) Audi has only been in the shop twice beyond standard maintenance. The second time it was a bad sensor saying the hood was unlatched when it wasn’t. The tech unplugged it, while eating his sandwich with the other hand, and sent me on my way, free of charge.
My 1985 5000, on the other hand, went through CV boots like it was eating them for lunch.
I’ve had my 2018 A6 for 3 years and aside from replacing the water pump, it’s had literally zero issues
Timely article. For the first time ever, about two weeks ago, I received an email “Speed Alert” from my car telling me I was speeding. I opted out via the app immediately after that, but according to the info above, I have some further work to do and actually call and request a complete opt out.
Great! My hyper-expensive consumer product wants to tattle on me b/c quarterly gains for a shadow industry society doesn’t need!!
And said data tattling (dattling?) would likely void my warranty if big auto thinks i was at fault in a warranty claim. Or not, as a few Toyota drivers are apparently dealing with!
Do these disable workarounds (it shouldn’t have to be this way) have to be exercised every time you turn on the vehicle? Every time you reconnect the battery after a repair? every time there is an OTA update? I can see programmers following their boss’s orders and burying that kind of code script where those of us with something better to do wont find it.
Even more reason not to buy a new car these days.
Sorry kids, no disposable wealth coding at the school drop-off line for you! We will continue to drive our old, kickass, non-narc, not-disposable enthusiast cars forever!
Muhahahaha!!
Even if you tell them to stop data collection and erase whatever data they have already gathered, I still have a feeling that data will continue to be sent and collected. Companies have proven that they feel it’s ok to lie about data collection. (Cough cough Google Incognito lawsuit cough cough.) As another commenter stated below, the only true way to ensure that no data is being harvested is to physically remove the ability to have data be collected, whether that’s cutting wires or removing fuses. It’s unfortunate that we now live in such a tech heavy world that even your car spys on you.
Drive things with carburetors and never fear again.
Or mechanical injection pump diesel cars.
Is there any brand that does not share privacy data? Is that Nissan? Since I didn’t see it mentioned on the list and their cars are “old”.
Nissan does on my 2022 Rogue- even has a little icon that comes up with the car sending information to the sky.
My 2019 Infiniti reminds me every month that it’s harvesting my data and makes me tap a little “OK” button to acknowledge that I know it’s happening. So I’m going to guess that’s a “no.”
Any idea on how to disable on a Volvo?
Probably almost impossible since they are running Android OS and the whole car needs internet to work, I wonder if pressing the Connect button and speaking with someone to confirm what happens to the data.
Luckily all my vehicles are too old for this to matter. However, an even better solution would be advertising which fuse to pull or wire to cut to completely block that data. Subaru owners have a pretty good fix for the battery killing Data Communications Module, pull the DCM fuse. Now you don’t have Starlink and your battery doesn’t die. Win win if you ask me.
This is the way
While I am not exactly an expert on computers and tech in cars, I have a feeling that unfortunately most of the data collection is being routed to the ECU that controls everything else, and obviously you can’t really remove the ECU unless you replace it with some aftermarket one (I’ve only seen aftermarket ECUs for tuners though.)
You don’t have to stop the car from collecting the data, you just have to stop it from sending it. Somewhere there will be a cellular modem to pull/destroy.
Land Rover initially advertised the new Defender as having 85 ECUs/ECMs, being British they quickly realized that isn’t a good thing for reliability on their part and stopped running those ads. Anyway, I’m sure they don’t need all of those for the engine and transmission to run properly.
“Tesla seems to collect data but claims that it doesn’t connect that data to a VIN number or owner account.”
Vehicle Identification Number number?
I highly doubt this. Actually, I straight up don’t believe it. Unless I physically can cut the connection then I will always assume that it’s sending something. Corporations have never given evidence for me to believe the contrary, and they break privacy laws all the time.
I’m still distracted by the BMW wagon, which I’d buy on a heartbeat after the lottery.
(Or the Alpina equivalent, cuz still in lottery fantasy mode.)
Forbidden fruit for the US, as we cant have nice wagon things, correct?
The wagony bit does bear a striking resemblance to the 2010ish acura tsx sportwagon, though. Seems a little copy pastey w/ that bog-standard rising beltline behind the B and C pillars.
That being said, Bahnstormers that can haul hay to the barn (or sacks of grain, or crates full of baby goats, whatever) are particularly cool!
Kudos! Not only did you tell us what’s going on but you gave us a fighting chance to defend ourselves. Thank you!
Makes me glad I don’t even have bluetooth in my Wrangler.
And the “monitor your driving for cheaper insurance” thing never made sense to me. Dings for heavy braking and sudden acceleration without context? Heavy braking because an idiot pulled out in front or suddenly changed lanes, speeding up to avoid a swerving truck or finally get past the person driving 20 under the speed limit? Doesn’t matter.
We just got a 19 Outback for my wife because her Grand Cherokee shit the bed, and I’m glad there’s nothing on here about Subaru. Unless I missed it. Besides, it’d just report that she gets dinged for the lane departure too often and stops at pretty much every Starbucks.
OK, but how can I insert a worm like Stuxnet into my system so that if dealers try to pull data from my car after I’ve gone through the steps to disable data sharing, the worm transfers with the data and destroys their entire system? Now that would be useful.
This is the way. Prepare for the dystopian cyberpunk future.
Too much William Gibson in my 20s, I guess.
Is a Panther Modern jumpsuit too much to ask, in 2024?!
Mimetic polycarbon suits are apparently right up there with flying cars in degree of technological difficulty.
Not likely, although they somehow accomplished this in the movie ‘Independence Day’. You’d need an older macbook, and …
It was a UNIVERSAL serial bus cord that they used.
It had to be of course.!
Not sure what kind of data they’re getting off my fleet since my newest vehicle is 25 years old.
Every time you play your Bob Seger Greatest Hits the Gracenote Database makes a note that you’re cool.
You raise a good point. How do we know which of our “mature” vehicles have these features, I have no idea when they started adding Snoopovision to vehicles
I clicked on the link at the end of the Honda section and then followed a link in that article to the Honda website and was able to submit a request online because I live in one of six states that have laws “protecting” us from this nonsense.
If it predates the www, you’re probably safe!
Data collection didn’t really start until 2006 or so. It was expensive to have actual onboard rewritable storage for digital data, so most of the electronics are either physical logic gates or ROM (read only memory). Luxury cars started adding rewritable storage around 2006, and regular cars found wider adoption around 2011.
So really, anything designed and engineered before 2003 or so (giving a buffer period for time it took to get to market) should be safe.
I’d do this for my wife’s Lexus, but I drive it like a little old lady not from Pasadena, trying to maximize MPG.
Of course, there is always the “Whoever drives this car has something to hide, otherwise why would they turn off the data feed?” rationale that will increase the insurance rate anyway.
There are numerous things about the current generation of cars that make me want to consider sticking with older cars — Too many screens, buttons and knobs moved onto touchscreens, overall cost to purchase and operating costs over time often requiring dealer service for simple maintenance just to keep the warranty in effect, etc.
But the data sharing/spying really takes the cake. At this rate, I’ll be willing to spend new-car money on a well-preserved (and interesting) used car from the last few decades before this mess started.
Yes, new cars have some remarkably good safety capabilities. But with over 40 years of driving, both professionally and for myself with an enthusiast’s level of focus, I’m willing to weigh the risks and take them with a car from an earlier era just so that I’m the one in control of the car, not some distant megacorporation and its minions.
Yep, 100%, and such an appropriate username for the first comment.