Comment by willis936
14 days ago
I've reliably disconnected Toyotas and VWs by pulling the cell antenna connections from the telematics modules in the dash. The GPS antenna is separate and still aids in carplay navigation.
14 days ago
I've reliably disconnected Toyotas and VWs by pulling the cell antenna connections from the telematics modules in the dash. The GPS antenna is separate and still aids in carplay navigation.
Makes it less likely to connect presumably, but at least on some cars it will sometimes, rarely manage to get out-- and of course it'll upload its queued data if it can. (In particular I know of someone where a GM car managed to get data onto the Lexis Nexis report with the antenna disconnected-- now with their FTC settlement its harder to tell if its still getting through, unfortunately).
Or if you take it in for service and they plug the antenna in. Better than nothing, but if your privacy and security depends on not being constantly tracked it's not good enough.
How did you confirm this? I believe you think you did it, but is there any way to confirm its not still sending via another module?
I have the service manual and can see there is only one telematics module in the car. It has two redundant LTE antennas and one GPS antenna going into the telematics module. The onstar calling works when the antennas are plugged in and doesn't when they're not. Can I confirm that they don't hide a bug somewhere in my car without stripping it down to the bone? No, but I'm not a schizo, so I won't bother.
That is a very reasonable level of diligence, but I don't think it's right to characterize further skepticism as "schizo" -- lets imagine the car has a separate entertainment system or sirusxm radio (perhaps not the case for yours)-- in that case it might have an entirely separate telematics function reporting back to a different corporate master. Because of how cars are built there are many places where subsystems are effectively duplicated. Sirus performing telematics in addition to the manufactures hardware isn't a hypothetical example.
More fair to say that you satisfied your level of concern. But it's entirely not schizo for someone to be concerned that there was more than one tracking vector, especially given that manufactures already active inhibit efforts to disable tracking and ordinary practices of the automotive industry.
Or, in other words, please don't privacy shame people. If you felt your approach was sufficient-- awesome! Better to be nothing like the people who were others names online for asking about disabling telematics at all, only to be all shocked pikachu when their insurer jacked their rates later based on their driving activity. :P