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‘Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed By Mozilla — Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota — Flunks Privacy Test
(www.mozillafoundation.org)
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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This is why if you buy a car, you should get a "dumb" car.
How?
Serious question, what is the best solution to this? My household has three cars, the newest is from 2008. It makes me nervous as to what to do if I wanted a "new" car (I'd never buy an actual new car, just new to me and made in the last ten years).
We need to find a way to cripple cars' connectivity.
Check for a "telematics unit" Removed one recently for a 2016 Subaru Forrester because it was draining the battery.
If the data is stored in the car, that just changes the timing of the privacy breach, not its existence.
There are a lot of serious issues that get recalled that need to be fixed in software nowadays. If you disable the radio, sure you're safe, but like you mention, if its stored on the car, now you either forego addressing recalls and risk your life, or you take it into the service center to manually update it and they get the data then.
Remove the spyware junk. All you'd practically use (beside the driving essentials itself) is radio, heating, lighting, warning signs, aircon, and that's it, really.* A Faraday cage can also help.
* Not gonna lie, something in me wonders whether those also have spyware or not... but either way.
How you gonna drive around with a car in a Faraday cage?
You ain't gonna see shit
I meant getting the spyware parts out and then in a faraday cage back in, but honestly, easier to just remove those.
Takes some checking about what makes let you disconnect or not. Toyota does, Kia has no option, base models might still have the "feature" omitted, etc.