this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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Yes. A lot of cars and car manufacturers include a Telematics Control Unit (a Cellular wifi modem) in their vehicles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2015/11/17/ford-steps-into-the-vehicle-telematics-space-with-sync-connect/
If people really cared about privacy and their cars and were serious about solving it, disabling the telematics control unit or the cellular modem would resolve this issue pretty quickly. None of the cars on the road today need internet connectivity to function.
However, if they have built-in Google maps or navigation system, well that's always going to be a privacy issue right? This is no different than having GPS and maps on your phone.
Judging by the lack of tik Tok videos on how to disable your car's cell modem, I'm guessing this isn't that big of an issue for people.
Disabling it often bricks the car because it's tied into an ECU or network that requires it. Even if it doesn't and you could say go and unplug it or a fuse for it, the one in the focus (according to Google) is behind the dash and would probably require you to remove the dash to access it. You could unplug an antenna or something but then other features like radio or GPS might not work. If your car has integrated GPS do not be surprised if it's the same antenna.
Disabling 4G breaks your car?
So how am I able to drive a Tesla across Northern Canada where there is no cell phone service or internet whatsoever?
That's not what I said. I said removing or messing with the modem may disable the car which was a known thing on on-star vehicles and generally any vehicle where you could for instance have the car disabled remotely or for instance use your phone as a key.
I just checked my user manual, and you can just pull the fuse for the OnStar unit and it will completely disable it. It does not break the car, I just verified.
May. I didn't say will. Congratulations on being pedantic for the purposes of one-upmanship. Your vehicle is probably newer. Like I said in the first comment originally they ran them through the ECU or similar and there was not a dedicated fuse because they were tied into the network traffic of the car to prevent thieves from being able to disable their ability to steal a car and prevent OnStar services from disabling or locating the vehicle.
Also gonna point out that GPS is built into newer cars and you may not be able to disable 4G without disabling that because they use the same antenna. Food for thought. Is disabling Onstar via the fuse deactivating the service or is it deactivating the SOS buttons? I'd love to see a schematic. In doing so can you still use onboard GPS?
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/tracking-technology/
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Here's a better explanation than I can ever give on the privacy aspect of this and the data car manufacturers are collecting.
As these cards age out, the cellular standard that they support will be eventually dropped and then they won't work. Just like owning an old cell phone.
This has happened with 3G networked and older vehicles (OnStar has been a thing since the 90's). People tried to unplug the OnStar hardware but they ran it through a CAN bus and it would disable the car (to prevent thieves from circumventing it).