Hello forum members,

I picked up my D90 a few weeks ago. I informed the dealer that I did not want my vehicle or my driving habits to be tracked via telemetry, and I didn't sign anything giving permission to do so.

Today I received an email from Carfax "courtesy of" my dealership. It included the exact mileage I've driven so far. So, without permission the car is transmitting moment to moment information straight to the mothership, which is subsequently being shared with Carfax and presumably anyone else who pays LR a few pennies.

So, how can this be stopped!?

(People who don't care, please just sit on your hands rather than scold those who do care. Thank you.)

 

Honestly, I don't know, so I should be sitting on my hands. However, would replacing the front module that holds the eSIM with this (without a SIM) work?
https://jlr-retrofit.com/defender-l6...tspot-package/

 

I share your concern. There was a short period of time where cars were "smart" yet dumb enough where if you could find the modem and unplug it that would kill the telemetry broadcast. I think we've now reached a point where doing so would cause a host of other problems. It's getting to the point where, without meaningful regulation on data collection, your only choice will be to drive an older car.

 

My car doesn't have a module such as that. The telematics at issue is separate from the "wifi" option that some cars come with.

Yes, as the above post indicates, the telematics is integrated very, very deeply into the car, to such a point that it likely can't easily be blocked. But I'm an engineer and would still like to try.

Meanwhile, I am writing a letter to Land Rover demanding that they cease. Has anyone tried and had any success with that? (I'm in California, and the conduct is likely in violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act.)

What else, if anything, has worked?

Thank you.

 

I totally agree with your view and wish you success. A few tidbits I've picked up: the Grenadier (I've read) seems to unfortunately have some "nanny technologies" - not appreciated by some US drivers. nanny tech is apparently a EU inspiration - they love it and mandate it, and unfortunately the Grenadier came to the US with a bit more than folks expected, and hence it's gained alot of posts. It seemed that Ineos was not wanting the nanny tech - more that it had to have it initially, and maybe they will drop it for us models? Next company: Toyota. I drove my friend's new LC and it had a host of nanny stuff as well. there's a dark plastic box on the steering wheel that monitors you while you drive - if you take your eyes off the road, you get a warning. These features are not likely to be popular in the US if you can't turn them off. we can't stop car companies from putting them in there, but in the US, we should have the ability to turn them off completely, or custom the ones we want. So good luck with your pursuits and hope that info helps (it's not just JLR. JLR is way better than both of those others, as those companies forced nanny tech monitors on their cars and that's terrible. at least you can custom Defender to not do the nanny tech stuff). As for data collection, it's really the sharing we don't want? the collection part happens likely anyways (like a black box to a plane). if there's an accident, malfunctioning part, or recall, that data is helpful to the owner. JLR collecting data they review when the Defender is in service may help generate solutions to unexpected problems. So long as all data is internal, I'm ok with it. another good use: the car realizes you've been in an accident and signals somehow a 911 equivalent. but if Toyota - just as an example - were capturing driver attention data (which apparently they are) and then giving that to a third party (which IDK), to then sell to insurance companies, that's likely class action chum in the water. It may be tolerated in the EU, but in the US, I think you'd be toast as a company if you did it. If a bank (for example) shared your online purchase history with a physical retail store, you can imagine how a retailer (like REI or Walmart) may be interested may be interested to know consumer preferences for purchases. But sharing that info would violate a host of regulations. obviously, the bank knows you buy online; but it's not likely the bank cares or could sell that information. I would hope its the same for car manufacturers. If they learn that oil needs to be changed at 10k miles in normal climate regions, but oil change frequency differs in Defenders driven in very hot states or very cold states, ok... It's disclosing data to another company that gets problematic IMO.... But if you find out let us all know!

 

I had no idea that this information was being sold to a third party. Have you confirmed this. Because if it has I am game for the class action lawsuit. I know my Defender tracks my outings and I see where I have been but I didn’t know or gave permission for them to sell my data to anyone. I think I have not given permission but I could be wrong as I signed a bunch of paperwork before I took delivery and to be honest I didn’t read any of it at all. I also renewed my remote thing on my phone as it stopped working. So please let me know what you find.

 

Sorry for not sitting on my hands as suggested, but I’m assuming anyone who objects to this invasion of their privacy does not use social media or own a smart phone. Your every move, purchase, or internet search is already tracked and sold. Watch or post to Tik-Tok? Doing so enables the app to glean the contents of your phone, which is held by Tik-Tok, and being a communist country, they are required to turn that data over to the Chinese government. Need to fuel up the Defender? Use cash every time? Credit card tracks where you bought gas, how much gas and much more. Buy from Amazon? Your purchase habits are well known and stored. Own a home? Well, after closing you get bombarded with every solicitation for insurance, pest control, lawn services, security systems, etc. I don’t hear any hue and cry and threats of lawsuits over this. Unless you use a burner flip phone, pay cash for everything, stay at home and never leave the house, it's too late to protect your privacy. I hear these same complaints from all the millennials and Gen-Z’ers who are on Instagram, X, Snapchat, Facebook, and a litany of social media but when faced with those same facts they protest vehemently, claiming they can never give up their social media and their close ties to their ‘communities’.I’ll surely get the hate for these comments, but being an open forum we are all entitled to our opinions. Couldn’t care less but this is the reality.

 

Everyone else pees in the pool so you should just accept this from JLR too.

No.

I suspect if just a few people took a bit more time to understand the egregious nature of this exploitation then it would be curtailed. Case in point when it came out GM was selling ‘driving behavior’ data it blew up in their face and it caused a massive retraction and back pedaling by many other auto manufacturers as well.

It isn’t too much to ask to have a car be a car and not a massive exploitation device for all these companies to data mine at our expense.

Sharing data on social media implicitly grants some relationship with the data being offered. Inferring your lifestyle and behavior choices from the places you park your car near or the routes you drive so inferences about everything from credit risk to life insurance policy ratings is completely unacceptable.

 

This is a bit more invasive that the things you mentioned, or, should I say, the invasion vector is different and much more painful.

The things you mentioned allow them to fine tune their advertisement for you (and it works 143%, if you know what I mean).

Here, if/when the information is sold to your insurances, you will (not may) be directly hit with, to name a few,

• Auto premium increases or denials because they know fast/where you go ("no, Fins & Things is not covered, besides, you were doing 90 on the way out of Bathtub")
• Health premium increases or denials (you're likely to require more medical attention, and specifically extremely expensive emergency attention because of higher than usual risk activities - did you know that you can be slapped with a $45,000 bill for having your vitals and CT scan taken in less than two hours if it is happening at ER?)
• Life insurance premium in... no, skyrocketing, for the same reason (did you know that just having a sleep apnea DOUBLES your life insurance premium? and this here guy is driving on that road next to the drop on Chicken Corners) - or outright denied
• Stalkers and phishers - you drive a Defender and are already an HVT by definition

...and you will never know about it even if you ask.

So no, if I have fruit flies in my kitchen it's not a cause to let cockroaches in as well.

 

One more example to think about ... the other day I parked near a coffeeshop ... around that same location is a brewery, a yoga studio, and a co-working space. So from that one data point my location would be loosely related to several very different activities. When those big data analysis queries run its easy to see how the questions asking "find me people who spend a lot of time near breweries " could select the same profile as "people who like to work out"... Certainly it is a bit more complicated then that, but next time you park your car look around and imagine the different types of stories your data is telling about you and how you don't want just any random company that pays JLR a few cents to start telling everyone else what they think they know about you...