Is Toyota collecting our driving data... ie speed and habits? If so.... can we turn it off?

[jnsplace]

Driver Monitoring System....it's the new tomorrow. And currently implemented in EU from what I am reading? I'm not saying it's right, to me this is no different than the conversations about phone monitoring....and if you think your map app isn't tracking your MPH, you might reconsider that thought. Location tracking was the beginning.

What you have a choice is how much and where it gets used outside of what is regulated. By after hitting "yes/no" going into the settings, etc.

Side comment: I do think US Congress would support DMS if they haven't already as it's based on safety perception.
Right or wrong.
The fight that I think we should continue to have is where and how that information gets used. I view it as no different than medical records. HIPPA is actually pretty recent enactment (1996) as a result of right or ownership of privacy. Something similar should be done here.

 

[jayce]

Yeah. And we all know how effective HIPPA has been in protecting our medical info. There are two problems: 1) sharing of driving data that many would like to keep private, and 2) hacking of databases containing all sorts of data, with companies writing “letters of apology” instead of improving their internal security. We need lawsuits to severely punish data breaches so that companies begin to care more about this.

Incidentally, I declined to accept connected services and did not download the Toyota app. Hoping this keeps my data private.

 

[EOD Guy]

I just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to start a new post. Can you send me a link?
Response to what you're saying here, today there's an update for the Toyota app and now I think if you don't allow them to share with third parties, your data and location will not be sent to Toyota.Period.
If this is exactly the same as it was please let me know but I think it's different?

View attachment 13292View attachment 13293

To create a new thread:
Go to the root forum ie....... "Land Cruiser Talk" (top of the page) Click the Link.
When the root page comes up, Click the "Post Thread"

 

[Nick]

To create a new thread:
Go to the root forum ie....... "Land Cruiser Talk" (top of the page) Click the Link.
When the root page comes up, Click the "Post Thread"


View attachment 13315

My hero! Thanks brother, I appreciate you. I knew someone would step up to the plate for me.

 

[bluebullet]

I'm not positive if you use the Toyota app, I don't think you can. Others my know for sure..........

On my Taco, I was getting all kinds of reminders for scheduling maintenance, started getting emails from Toyota dealers about sales and other unsolicited stuff. I canceled the app subscription and magically they disappeared. I also requested the dealer to delete my cell phone number from their database due to all the unsolicited calls and texts, they deleted my Taco's VIN from their database. I drove to the dealers for an oil change and had the Maintenance Manager look up my VIN on his system and all the records were still there, but the scheduler could not locate my VIN in the system.......... really weird. The dealer now has a phone # that is hooked to my answering machine, no unsolicited texts, maintenance reminders or sales event notifications.

That may give you some insight to Toyota's information technology expertise. IMO they choose to go middle of the road I think out of laziness balanced by what the average consumer expects and will put up with. Never good to poke the bear...

 

[omgponies]

Bumping this - I was looking for another thread where someone was saying they recalled seeing that the Tacoma had kits you could buy to block the signals, and they wanted to know if the LC did - but cannot find it in local search or Google search of the site.

I think this thread is showing a disconnect between what a company says they do and what they still can do.
For example, Toyota says that if you go into the privacy portal of the app, you can disable any tracking (and may lose some functionality as a result).

Which points to the different levels they can make money from tracking (and they can certainly make money from more than one level at a time, in fact, that's ideal - for them):

Level 1 - directly sell you things. They can sell you things under the banner of safety and convenience - if you don't want those things, don't pay for them, and they absolutely will not supply them to you. But do note, that in order to supply them to you, the hardware is in your car. By not actively paying them, you have just removed your access to it, not theirs (and therefore, by proxy, others). This is a subscription and subscriptions are fantastic, for Toyota, when showing revenue projections to investors. This is also incredibly useful, for Toyota, to have what is called a float - they can take that money and do more exotic financial maneuvers - the known income stream makes that possible. (e.g. if Toyota wants to take out a loan and they use the "we sell cars" as collateral, the bank will not be certain exactly how many cars Toyota will sell that year, but if they have N yearly subscriptions at a fixed rate, they have a far more exact number that they know they can claw from Toyota - so the loan gets more favorable).

Level 2 - sell your data, to others. This is most obviously described in several posts here where you get directed advertising for things that are most likely car-use adjacent (e.g. insurance). In this particular case, they are potentially selling data that is obfuscated so that it is not as obviously you (e.g. they may show that I am a US male of some age, but they might not share my name) - but at this level, they are also sharing your actual information - this is how the third parties can directly market to you (e.g. get spam). Toyota makes more on this level of selling data than they do on the last level (and as noted, they would love to sell all of the levels). When they tell you that you can opt out - this is the level they mean.

But, again, the devices are still part of your vehicle. So they can still track you - it is easier for them to just track everything and look at the averages than it is to pick and choose turning things on and off - far more expensive to implement.

Level 3 - sell your data, to others. Similar to the above, but this is likely only the abstracted one - won't result in targeted ads, but still has many negative side effects.

There is also sort of a phantom Level 4 where, at least in the US, they have to comply with the govt agencies and share data in cases that may seem reasonable when originally intended. e.g. say you go out and do Bad Things and law enforcement wants to ask for your car location data to prove that you (or rather, your car) were on the same location at the same times as where Bad Things happened - they can do that. This seems fine to many because they simply "do not do Bad Things" - which is lovely, for them. But if you look across history at what a given govt thinks is a Bad Thing or a less desirable entity, that is a moving target (see Overton Window). Maybe today you are absolutely fine with ICE rounding up people who aren't currently you and disappearing them, but maybe in some future administration you are suddenly part of the group deemed Bad - suddenly widespread sharing if your location seems less fun.
That said - if you have issues with nearly any of that, may I remind you that you likely hold a tracking a device in your pocket where several of the most profitable companies in the world are competing to sell as much of your data as possible via that device - you might even be reading this on one. And they are doing it far more aggressively than the cars are, for now.

So if you truly want to stop the above, there are the opt out things already discussed, which get you some level away from it - or just stop the device that monitors it - which is the DCM. I cannot say in the LC if that bricks the unit or not, or remove/break the antenna, etc.

(I do know that for several models of Subarus, their DCM has a flaw and because of that flaw, does not work correctly - the side effect of that is the software tries extra hard to reconnect more often, which results in the car draining its battery constantly. If you drive frequently enough, you might not notice this, but if it sits for a few days, you might notice a dead car when you come out to it. Dealers are openly lying about it - somme theorize it is because corporate told them to, others say it is more likely just that corporate will give them money for the battery replacement so it is in their monetary interest to just keep replacing batteries vs making any effort to fix it - you can search around about it to see how you can prove they are not being truthful - and they are claiming it is a "bad batch" of batteries - which in some cases, may span 5+ years of batteries across all brands and just for some cars - weird, right?)

I probably come across as a nutter to some - but I work in software and analytics and have seen the inside of this (not at a car company).

Here is a video that points to a website (I assume the video is just a shill for the site, but the site is free to access) that has some details as well Vehicle Privacy Report

That in turn, if you click around a lot, can get you to a Toyota Privacy Hub page that I was not able to find on the Toyota site via normal navigation and not directly via Google (which is less likely anything nefarious and more just that Google search is largely useless now that they are leaning into AI).

Privacy Hub

privacy.toyota.com

(note - this is not the same as the privacy portal)

In there you can request a (free) report of what data they have on you as well as request a deletion of your data (note that there are some exceptions there that likely fall under the GDPR Act, or the US variations on that, as well as generally the "obligated to share with the US govt" stuff).



Has anyone here tried disconnecting the DCM antenna and/or fuse?

 

[RideWithYanu]

That’s a lot.