693
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
693 points (99.0% liked)
Technology
86860 readers
3661 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Once a person purchases a vehicle it should be theirs, not shared access with Automakers and their partners.
It hasn't been that way for a long time. Every car since 2018 has some sort of black box in it that it records your driving behaviors, and that data gets sent to or sold to insurance companies who then use it to raise your premiums.
I think cunts who drive like cunts should pay more.
However, the real reason why cars have black boxes is repeated fraudulent claims by US law firms on "sudden acceleration".
The last lawsuit ended because Toyota had black box data proving US drivers are shit and commonly hit the wrong pedal. Before that, they had to settle $1B to law firms.
Oh, I agree with that. People who drive like complete assholes should definitely have to pay higher insurance premiums, but the way that they get the data to determine who these people are is just a huge privacy concern for me.
How are these black boxes reporting back though? Do all these cars just have a free SIM card built in?
Typically a soldered on sim chip, or esim software. You can disable it on some cars, for example I was able to bypass it on my 4runner pretty easily. I lost the feature to find my car, lock doors or see its status using the Toyota app though but I am 100% ok with that.
I'm not sure about this black box, but in the EU, the e-call system is mandatory, so all new cars do indeed have a sim. Though it's most likely not a card, but either a chip (iSIM) or just in software (eSIM).
They do. They hide it as an SOS system. "Only used in case of emergency." It's connected to GPS, sim like a cellphone that has at least 4g cell service to "call emergency." I think Chevy used their Onstar connection. That's always on, and the data text files can be sent without interrupting that service.
OnStar is the worst for selling data. They even record your body weight.
They do in fact. It's also how the app connectivity works in modern cars.
"Wo ein Trog ist, da kommen die Schweine."