Pretty sure that’s for the phone through the BT connection.
I highly doubt it. This icon is always used for cellular connectivity.
RUSI had a video on this topic laying out the challenges on Chinese cars.
I mean it’s literally right next to the icon for the phone battery. That’s what makes me think so.
Edit:
In my car, that shows the signal strength of my phone cell connection. This info is provided through the BT connection.
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I did this on a 2019 Subaru Forester.
That is showing the connectivity of my phone.
Right, so are you sure your car isnt using that connection now to send out data? (Just curious)
I’m not even remotely sure of that. My thought, however, is that car manufacturers probably don’t feel the need to implement piggybacking off a phone connection as a fail-safe in this rather fringe scenario, as the overwhelming majority of people wouldn’t think to do this. It is definitely a possibility though.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it, I don’t think that is happening. Before I removed the module, whenever I brought the car to the dealer they already had updated mileage in their system. I also occasionally got service reminders pushed to the car. Ever since, they have to check the car and manually input the mileage, and those reminders have stopped.
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Not really. This knowledge is pretty obscure and mainly found within high end car theft circles, but on any vehicle today you can disable tracking easily within 30 seconds and still drive it. There are many tunnels or remote areas without service, if tracking was a requirement they wouldn’t work in such conditions.
On low end car models some only track you if you pair your phone, since there is no modem on board. Example basic civic will have less tracking components than a touring model.
Lets say a vehicle has on star tracking. You can: disable the service from the screen, then remove the fuse for the onstar, then remove the whole onstar box, remove the microphone.
If you want a demonstration of how to disable tracking within 10 seconds, watch the national geographic documentary “trafficked” special on car theft. A car thief calls his friend, who tells him the location of the 3 antennas on the vehicle and he quickly pops them all out.
Note, if you financed your car, its possible the dealership installed a secondary (third party) tracker that is hardwired into your car somewhere. You can find these and cut them out too.
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Sigh. Can we have non smart cars please.
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Yeah is also really bad in my country and is gettings worse every year. It was a big topic in the news 2019ish because of “terrorist” and “criminals” now nobody talks or cares about it anymore. It was also the reason I got in to motorcycles.
I don’t know the laws in USA but in my country pre 2006 scooters don’t need a license plate and motorcycles only need a back plate. The helmet is also plus for privacy.
When I was looking for a motorcycle I went to a motorcycle convention I asked a Hells Angels member about license plate scanners he shows me his iron 1200 how he bended his license plate in a way that it was harder to be scanned. Good idea, but I don’t really think it will work.
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Thanks for sharing your experience!
That is good to know.
But I have one question. You refer to “telematics” and the communication module as the same thing. Have you checked if those are two separate things in your car?
In my research people told me that is the case for many models. Meaning your car may not be spying on you on real time, but they may still be gathering the same information, that will be downloaded when you get it serviced in a dealership.
Which is how they spied on us when they converted cars into rolling hard drives, but before they converted cars into rolling cell phones.
It does work, if you look statistics for red light cameras 10 - 20% of tickets are non-readable due to dirty plates, plate covers, no plates, etc.
In the EU its harder to stop plate readers but in North America its trivial (license plate design, size, and materials).
Additionally, driving with covered plates here is a fine of under $100, I’ll take the ticket.
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For Subaru the module I’m referring to is called the DCM, short for STARLINK Telematics Data Communication Module. My assumption is that it connects to the antennae in the sharkfin for cellular and GPS and phones home whatever data Subaru collects. I don’t know if the data collection is programmed into the DCM itself or elsewhere.
I think it’s important to note that with everything being proprietary to each manufacturer, I can only provide speculation with my assumptions for my car specifically. I can’t give any definitive information on whether or not what I’ve done is truly impactful or just privacy theater. My thoughts are based only on what I’ve looked up and observations I’ve made.
Do anyone know how bad Volvo is?
I have found a cheap Volvo S60 from 2017
Australian research.