Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.
So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.
LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.
On a Thursday morning in June for example, the car had been driven 7.33 miles in 18 minutes; there had been two rapid accelerations and two incidents of hard braking.
I can’t wait to see tuturials. I don’t know much about cars and would love to see people disable these, or perhaps do something malicious. Not that I have a new enough car yet, but I know one day it’s going to be unavoidable.
As long as you know where they are, a simple faraday cage should work perfectly. Basically, surround the module with an electrically conductive material to catch radio waves.
If you’re using android auto or something like that this information is going to be transmitted on the same connection used for navigation and internet so you better learn the map of the city again if you want to scape the Spyware.
I was thinking something like free data plan till they disable the transmitter or at least an unplug. Never bought a new car, do you agree to terms and conditions or sign a contract specifically mentioning/consenting to the tracking?
In Toyota’s there’s a red sticker on the dash talking about it and how to opt-out. (or at least I’ve seen it in a rental and a new car - but it might also be yanked by dealer’s PDI)
Feeding it ideal driving data is probably what would be the best case scenario.
Until your insurance finds out
Or when you repair it in service. Yep. Just like with rolling back miles driven before reselling, there would be a a weapon race between tweakers and investigators.
The issue is you get busted once doing that with your insurance, you’ve completely fucked your coverage. Rolling back (at least a while ago) you could bounce around/getting caught wasn’t likely to follow you around lol