Connected Services and Toyota Selling Your Telemetry

There is an ongoing class action lawsuit against Toyota for selling telemetry data to insurance companies which include speed, braking, gps, and voice. Honda, Acura, Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota were found to be selling this data to LexisNexis and Verisk who in turn created a score for you and sold the scores to insurance companies. GM was found to be selling on star data to insurance companies by the government.
GM agreed not to sell your data for 5 years.

For Toyota you can disconnect your car in a few ways:
1. remove the DCM module
2. pull the fuse for the DCM module
both will cause the bluetooth speaker not to work and throw an error on the dash. Nothing else will be impacted
3. Only via the Toyota app, you can disconnect all connected services- this will disable the safety connect crash detection and automatic call for help, web based map, remote key, and any visibility to car info from the app. It will NOT affect SiriusXM, Carplay, or any regular driving functions.

I disconnected the connected services. The surprise is that ALL the car settings reset. Radio station favorites, door lock settings, automated seat adjust settings, light timer settings. Makes you wonder why all this crap is connected remotely and what Toyota is doing with it.

BMW pledges never to sell personal or telemetry data without express user consent.

Toyota makes it pretty difficult to opt out of its automatic opt in. You NEED to do it with the app. Once in the app you go to your account and then privacy. It also has links for you to request hard copies of all the tracking info they have on you, request the data get deleted, and request that they do not sell your data. I made all three requests. I received an email today pictured below. Toyota is no longer selling my personal information. Note, you can make these requests without disconnecting Toyota Connect but who knows how the terms will change in the future.

This is not a matter about being a bad driver. Why should these companies be allowed to harvest telemetry and sell it? Unless you use their subscripton map, want that piece of mind of some service detecting when you are in a crash, or want the app for a digital key or maintenance reminder I strongly recommend giving Toyota the finger and disconnecting.

 

Not sure what is going on with the email picture. The text reads:


Your "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" privacy request (ID: YABFNL92PHZ) has been completed. We will stop selling or sharing your personal information to third parties. In addition, we have notified applicable third parties, where required by law, to not sell or share your personal information. Your privacy request is now closed.


Additional Information

• Please visit our Privacy Notice (Toyota) (Lexus)
• Please visit our FAQ page here.

Regards,

Privacy Team
Toyota Motor North America(TMNA)

 

Yes exactly. Cost of doing business. This makes me want to pull the fuse on the DCM altogether

 

good video. I decided to order a bypass harness.

 

you can leave your cell at home or put iphones into lockdown mode. Again, what gives Toyota the right to do this? irrespective of the other companies.

 

Ok the video actually makes this waaay more complicated. It is very easy. Skill level 2-3 out of 10.

1. remove the plastic piece that straddles the center console to give room to remove the center console.


2. remove the center console. It just has clips holding it down. It pops straight up with a gentle pry tool.

There are 5 plugs if I remember... might be 6: 3 across the front, 1 under the parking brake area, and one at the way back by the hinged compartment. Start at the back by the hinged compartment and then work your way forward because the harness does not have a lot of play under the radio and you need to rotate the console up to access the front plugs



4. Unplug the white connector under the DCM



4. reach up under the radio area and unscrew the 2 10mm nuts holding the DCM in place



5. with a little manuvering the DCM can be rotated out:


6. unplug the connectors from the DCM. I decided to leave the three connectors plugged in as I would just not plug the white conector back in from step 4.



7. reinstall the DCM

8. I ziptied the white connector so it was not flopping around



Now to access the cable:

1. remove the OBDII panel under in driver foot well



2. remove the side panel in driver foot well (it is overlapped by OBDII panel)



3. Access the cables from the DCM. peekaboo







Everything ia back together except for the OBDII panel and driver foot well panel as I wait for the cable. The U-shaped panel and center console are the only other two things that needed to be removed or installed.

*****One strange error******

I have to diagnose why the cruise control is being reported as manfunctioning. I do not think it has anything to do with the DCM and there is nothing on the center console related it to. I am going to dig into that now. There are no other errors on the dash, it MIGHT be the way toyota indicates there is a bad DCM. If this is the case when I get the harness it should clear it up. I might not worry too mich about the reported malfunction until I get that harness and see if it is still there after connecting it.

 

UPDATE: I started up the car again to see if there were any apply carplay issues. Now there are no errors on the dash. Cruise cotnrol seems fine. No warning that the DCM is even disabled. All good. I am sure the bluetooth mic is disabled as that is a known issue the harness solves. Carplay has no issues.