Reminder that literally every car company has terrible data privacy terms.

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

Subaru, despite being awful with privacy, is actually on the upper end of the spectrum.

Tesla, Nissan, Hyundai, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, Chevrolet, Kia, Acura, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lincoln, Ford, Lexus, Toyota, Volkswagen, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, and Fiat all ranked worse.

Tesla did not rank worse. The article could not find anything bad to say about Tesla's actual practices, so they scrounged some stuff up like "having AI means Tesla bad" and put in the Tesla statement that removing connectivity stops your ability to get software updates — well, yeah... They neglected to mention that any data Tesla collects does not identify you — even better than that, it does not even identify the specific vehicle. They do have the ability to go back and forensically get data for a specific car in special situations (accidents needing investigation for example) but they are so far ahead in privacy it's a joke that the article tried to portray it otherwise.

>having AI means Tesla bad

That's not what was said.

"They neglected to mention that any data Tesla collects does not identify you" and "They do have the ability to go back and forensically get data for a specific car in special situations"

Are contradicting each other.

Anyways, lets take Tesla out of the mix. The overall point is that every car company sucks.

I've found one company that does not suck in this department, so, the point is questionable.

>Are contradicting each other.

Zero knowledge proofs, cryptographic hashes, etc. I don't claim to know what they're doing but it's not necessarily a contradiction.

All mozilla did was read the privacy policies. This is not a defense of car companies, but we need a real, detailed analysis of what is actually collected, when it is collected, and where it is stored. I hate tech in modern cars, Mozilla’s reporting here does very little to help anyone understand what is really going on; only what has been noted in the privacy agreement.

Even though this is "just reading the privacy policy", it's pretty damning when your car company says they can collect your sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc. and straight up say that they sell your information.

>we need a real, detailed analysis of what is actually collected, when it is collected, and where it is stored

Unless the companies themselves divulge that information, or various governments team up and force them to, this is the best you're going to get.

Reminder that you can actually physically dike out the cellular antenna/telematics module while keeping the rest of your infotainment system intact using an aftermarket wire harness[0].

[0]: https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/69018.html

I wonder if there's a market for a company that makes affordable custom short extension or Y-splitter wire bundles, using 3D printing to cover all the innumerable automotive and appliance plugs and sockets that exist out there.

It'd make it a lot easier to cleanly (and reversibly) tap some CAN bus cables, for example.

I left my telematics unit in place, but disconnected its GPS and cellular data antenna plugs.

What does that opt out form actually do? That doesn’t look like an actual Subaru website.

Yeah, I had the same question. It seems the form appears here on their suburu.com domain:

https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html

Should I opt-out if my Forester has been bought used and I've never activated Starlink with my own credentials?