Does this mean driving for fun days are over?

I wouldn't put too much trust in the report produced. It said my vehicle share its location and supports Android Auto. My 2017 Prime is the base model with the small screen. It doesn't support Android Auto and it has no cell capability.

 

What? How? I don't see any app for Android Auto in mine? What year is yours? Mine is a 2017.

 

I don’t see how this relates to “is driving for fun over”?
Yes, companies are selling data.
Most often it is aggregated data (which is valuable).

Frankly, if you are on public roads, you are sharing data about how you drive with everyone around you.
If you are adamant about not sharing data:

1. Throw away your phone.
2. Loose your internet connections.
3. Don’t drive anywhere
4. Only buy with cash.

As for what companies do with your data, demand companies handle your data appropriately.
Bring your concerns to your representatives (both local & federal).
Vote accordingly is your representatives don’t support privacy laws.
Ask investigative reporters to dig into this.

 

Giving my driving data to the insurance company was the only way to get a half decent rate - with perfect driving record / no tickets or accidents my rate still tripled at the last renewal / going from a 2021 Supra to Prius Prime SE... Got a dozen quotes - all were nuts. Signing up for spy app cut the rate by about 40%, so had to make this concession.

 

No Prime had Android Auto before the 2021 model year.

Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto are the real gamechangers in this space.

If you have a car that supports these features, it means it is also equipped for some heavy duty user data harvesting, specifically built into those two features.

Even without these features, there are some app-related data leaks, but it's a dribble compared to CarPlay/AA.

Or you could form one or more corporations to own the car, the phone, internet subscription etc etc. Not cheap, you wouldn't want to do it unless you had other reasons as well. Also not perfect, but not too bad honestly...

 

Ok, so back to what I originally said, the report said based on my VIN that it had Android Auto, which it doesn't so the report given is incorrect.

 

Having just returned from a couple weeks of skiing in CO, I did notice a greater degree of that there than here.

Not there here is well behaved anymore either ...

Also, Winter Park was not good for getting my Prime recharged. While recharging at the ski lots was nominally 'free', it was only in a couple $35+ parking lots (during ski hours), and town was seriously underserved and over-subscribed. At our lodging, the wall outlets were not accessible without blocking traffic. A single CCS/Tesla station was within walking distance, but no J1772s. At least I succeeded in getting juice at or within an easy walk of our other destinations.

 

I had my 'driving score' feature of Toyota's mobile app enabled for about a week. It seemed too easy to get minor demerits around 'traffic calming' planters in a nearby residential street, and for getting moving from a stop sign up a steep incline. Then after getting a much stronger hard-braking demerit for choosing to actually stop for a last-moment yellow traffic light, it seemed that this feature encouraged running yellow and red lights in order to 'improve' driving score, so I promptly disabled it. Now I need to comb through the rest to search for 'consensual' data leaks, and ask for the third-party reports to look for signs of non-consensual leaks.

 

I value my privacy.

I'll keep my Prius v level 2 as long as I can, since it has no internet connection.

 

Your car has a telematics unit as well. It phones home. part Denso 86741-75011

Your privacy is an illusion.

 

How, it has no wifi connection.

 

Don't need wifi if it can call directly.
Though I can't find what exactly that part is for. Even if it is a cell phone unit, it could be for a network that is no longer supported.

 

Yeah, 3G cell service is no longer supported. The transceiver might only support Techstream accessible only through the OBD II port.

 

Don't care.
I'm gonna drive how I drive

 

Yes, in the great majority of the country. And by all the major carriers.

But have all the minor rural ones been shut down yet? When dad passed away a year ago, he still had a 3G phone, and his provider had not yet publicized a transition date. But they were making clear to customers that older 3G phones could not roam on other networks, newer models were needed to roam, and might need updated network settings before such roaming. Frequently changing network settings were causing problems for both the older 3G models (I had to take dad's phone in to the local office to fix one of these issues), and for some of the modern models that could roam on 4-5G but were still configured to work on their old network.

My newer phone on a major network did work seamlessly at least when roaming near dad's house within that minor rural network.

 

I requested and received the Toyota privacy report. Read all 60 pages of it. Does not seem that they share with insurance companies unless you request it (which I have not).

 

Just fugedabout charging on road trips; it's a plug-in hybrid, not an EV? Leave it for the EV's where charging is do-or-die?

 

This wireless stuff is all a bit confusing to me, 3g 4g 5g 6g mesh 7g hotspots repeaters encryption authentication - ya know? Back in the olden days many manufactures used to advertise their newest equipment / stuff as (the newest tech stuff ) "ready", even if the newest tech stuff was not enabled in that equipment yet. Anyone else remember that? - Just a couple of thoughts for you'll to ponder on.
A couple of examples are, if you connect your phone to the car to use the old Entune app to get hands free phone calls over the cars entertainment systems, it wouldn't be too hard to piggyback over the phones connection or sat nav to gather or exchange data. Say there are a couple of phone profiles attached to the car, but no phone connected to any of those connection profiles and one drives near enough to a - same model phone as one of those phone connection profiles in the car -, and you see the MFD light up with the There is no phone connected and shows the current phone profiles that are currently saved in the cars systems.
That kinda thing confused the hell out of me the first couple times it happened.
I can only imagine how many more times I might see that happening in the car if I had a samsung or pixel.
Owners wouldn't ever see that message while their phone(s) is / are in the car and connected.
Another example that can be tested at home is - sitting in the car with tthe car On or in Ready and no phone with you in the car, than have someone inside the home or apartment that has a phone that has a connection profile saved in the cars system and not more than about 20 to around 50 feet / 7m to around 17m away from the car, make a phone call and keep walking towards the car while on the phone call, you should be able to see the MFD light up when the phone gets in range and be able to listen and talk on the phone conversation while in the car. much like a 3 way call.
There's other weird stuff that goes on in the systems too and I'm pretty sure the car doesn't always show us exactly what it's up too, all the time.

ps; currently listening to -
Somebody's Watching You Sly & The Family Stone 1970 !yt
because it's easier than setting up my turntable and and playing the vinyl LP on it.