I am sure this article has been shared before, however I wanted to have a look at this topic.
The articles short summary is this:
All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label – making cars the worst category of products that we have ever reviewed
I am currently driving a 2014 Ford Fiesta which just has a radio with a CD player and Bluetooth. I do not need more than that in a car.
The reason I am looking at all is that that the Fiesta does not belong to me and the friend owning it will be moving out in a bit, so I kinda need another one.
There seems to be one brand that is not as bad as the other ones (but still bad): Renault; mozilla's review...
Maybe I will have a look at their cars.
What do you guys think? Stick to older used cars and not use an EV or look at which of the manufacturers have the least bad privacy policy?
The article is from 2023, it is likely several orders of magnitude worse now.
Imo, the sweet spot for reliability and unconnected tech is the mid 2000s to 2015ish. Good engine control, simple user interfaces with buttons, nice creature comforts, good fuel efficiency, and still good safety (generally)
I have a 2019 wrx that while I like it, I know the subaru telemetry is both significant and easy to access, there has been a number of articles about it published in the last year or two. There are opt out procedures through subaru but let's not kid ourselves here do you really trust them to do it? How do you prove they have stopped?
That said, your phone shares all that data already, it being shared by another device is not really much different than coming from one source.
(Edit: since some of you missed what I was trying to convey here, I was trying to point out that the exercise of securing your car is half the battle, yes you SHOULD do that, any reduction in data sharing is a positive thing. You should also be realistic about how much that actually accomplishes when you are also carrying your cell phone with you in your car.)
What I really don't like is the driver aids. My mom has a newer Mercedes suv and it is realllllllly intrusive. The auto brake function as awful, it auto does corrective steering. I am sure in an actual panic situation I would welcome it but I absolutely do not like it on normal situations. I also don't trust it from a cyber security situation.
your phone doesn't share data from your cars sensors with your insurance company.
You should double check that. There are lots of non-insurance apps that share data through data brokers where it gets back to insurers. You personally may not use them, but some people will/do.
I want to re-re-re-iterate that I am not advocating giving up on the idea of securing your car, I am just saying if you are going through the exercise of making sure your car is secure or offline that you also need to be realistic about what your phone shares even when locked down.
Fair enough, you do have a good point. Though I will argue stopping one is better than none.
I agree 100%.