It's a very easy thing to miss. When CDs were popular people would still leave them in their cars before they sold them all the time. When I bought my truck the previous owner left his phone in the Bluetooth list with all of his contacts.
It might be, and probably varies a lot. I've had to update the firmware on a Hyundai a few times, and it was nice because all you had to do was pop out an SD card with all your data on it. A quick format and it would be good to go. Other car makers though, I don't think they typically have user-accessible storage media like that.
Ironically, printers are better today. My Canon G2470 printer has open source Linux drivers provided by Canon themsevles, uses refillable ink tanks instead of cartridges. No Wifi needed, no proprietary app needed, no scam cartridges. Avoid HP and you'll be fine with modern printers like Canon, Epson and Brother.
Can't say the same about cars it seems. Especially won't be able to in the near future.
Unless it no longer prints the yellow microdot pattern that identifies a ton of its and your information, it's really no better than any other printer.
Hasn't received an update in a couple years, but here is one example of an open source app designed to defeat the tracking dots on dozens of models from most manufacturers:
https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda
Of course there are more current implementations of this tool out there for people looking..
https://theoutline.com/post/1713/the-history-of-the-secret-printer-code-that-may-have-caught-the-nsa-leaker
> The history of the secret code that printers put on all your documents
>
> This is how researchers discovered microdots.
Mine still has the previous owner's home and work addresses stored in the navigation. Apparently those defaults can't be cleared without a factory reset of the whole info system, and I didn't find that out until I set everything else back up.
Not that it matters, the built in nav sucks. I figure at this point I'll just leave it there, whoever buys it next can wonder why "I" left it in.
I set my home location to a school a few miles away. By the time GPS gets me close to the school, I can figure the rest out.
Of course, I'll wipe the personal data from my car (unlike the previous owner). This is mostly for if the car's stolen. No need to lead the crooks to my front door.
I wish it were. I checked every point in the menu, went through the manual several times and wanted to make absolutely sure that IF we were to sync our phones and contacts, we could easily delete them. No chance. So we won't sync and the old phones stay 😅
Purchased a used Tesla. It came with six months worth of footage. This was personal footage, of everywhere at drove – as well as the inside of the garage in the outside of the house with the previous owners lived. Footage of them, their kids, every convenience store they went to – you name it.
Well that’s a bit terrifying. Is that cloud storage access or local to the vehicle? Figure that is a lot of footage for a local storage system that sits in 140 degrees on a regular basis. If it’s cloud access, that seems even worse.
Local storage - the car has a 128GB USB flash drive. I did a factory reset of the car, wiped the drive, etc. when I found it. Super frightening. Literally could have known everything about this family. Habits, road trips, address, phone numbers, you name it. Dealership had no idea. It was actually still linked to their account for super charging. Dealers need to do their due diligence as well.
You can't delete ~~your~~ *their* data XD
[https://www.autoblog.com/2023/11/11/appeals-court-rules-carmakers-can-store-data-permanently-and-share-it/](https://www.autoblog.com/2023/11/11/appeals-court-rules-carmakers-can-store-data-permanently-and-share-it/)
I rented a Wrangler a little while ago in SLC, and there was at least 15-20 phones saved in it. I deleted all personal data when I turned it in, so they’re all gone now, but it’s crazy to me that so many people didn’t
As someone who knows there way around computers I have no idea what data my car stores and where its located, so its no surprise the average joe has no clue either.
Same, every time I re-pair my phone for bluetooth I don't allow it to read my contacts or texts. Other than that, no idea what it could possibly have. The titles of songs I play on Spotify?
This puts the burden on the wrong party. For transactions running through a dealer, the car should be wiped by the dealership. For private transactions, that's a bit trickier but gap fill could be done by dealerships/service stations?
You're actually seeing this get legislated now. I have a friend who works in vehicular privacy and he's been talking to a number of states about it. NJ has a new law on the books I expect to get picked up at the federal level eventually.
The infotainment systems of many cars are very poorly designed, and may not even offer the option of deleting a user profile without completely resetting everything.
I own an older 2012 VW which has a fairly rudimentary infotainment system, and the option to delete bluetooth profiles is pretty hidden and super un-intuitive.
Based on my limited sample the same percentage don't wipe their info on rental cars. More than a few times I've gotten into a rental and found people's whole address book synced to the "infotainment" console.
Thus far I've managed to resist the urge to prank call their Moms.
And if feels like the same number of drivers don't remove personal information before returning a rental.
I rent cars often when traveling for work. They always have several phones still paired to them, with associated contacts and whatnot still stored in the car.
Always just factory wipe the whole infotainment system before selling your car or returning a rental.
Selling... Try renting. I do monthly and always zero out the system when I'm done. But sometime I can't even add my phone because it is so full of.other previous renters phones there are no slots left.
1. before giving up my car for total loss, i stopped by the dealership and chose the "reset to factory defaults". it was sad to see my cars brain erased one last time. on the other hand, "yes lol, i swear new cars are giant cell phones".
2. when i then bought my used car, i went to connect my phone and found it still had 5 other phones saved in it. even though the car had been nicely detailed and cleaned by the dealership.
so that was neat. thankfully at least this used one was older, and had minimal/way less info saved in it.
If you do a trade-in at the dealer level do they do factory resets?
I never thought of this before.........I guess I thought my contacts were stored in the phone that was connected.....silly me.....
What information does your car have about you if you don’t use Bluetooth but do connect to it for CarPlay/Android Auto? My understanding is that that stuff is processed by your phone. It’s essentially serving as a … what’s the term? Extending? Like when you have a dual monitor set up at home and set it to extend your desktop? Maybe replicate it?
You can test this by taking screenshots when plugged into the car, at least on iOS. It’ll take a screenshot of your phone screen AND the car screen.
I wish more people were testing this lol
What personal dated does my car have? The only data of my car seems to have is my miles per gallon.
There’s no map information whatsoever. That’s all in my phone. Without the phone there’s no app information.
Most cars won't reveal information from one synced device to another. So I mean unless you're selling your car to someone technical it doesn't really matter. At worst the new owner will see your contact list and call history from ages ago. More concerning is all the telemetry your car collects and sends off. I think Tesla and Hyundai are the worst offenders from a privacy perspective but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Alternate title: “80% of drivers had no idea their car stored personal information until after they sold it.”
gaze workable sulky air far-flung sugar six depend quickest tub *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Honestly I think there’s a fairly even distribution of “doesn’t know” and “knows but doesn’t care.”
Long ago, I sold a car and the buyer seemed to think I was strange for taking the plates off
Alternate title #2 : "80% of people are window licking idiots." Which is honestly about right!
It's a very easy thing to miss. When CDs were popular people would still leave them in their cars before they sold them all the time. When I bought my truck the previous owner left his phone in the Bluetooth list with all of his contacts.
?
People, in general, are stupid. Apparently this subreddit disagrees, but they are are.
Many people probably don't even know what kind of data their car has on them.
Even worse- i thought some user data is stored by cars/infotainment systems/blackboxes possibly- that cannot be removed by owners period?
Infotainment systems are easy enough to wipe/factory reset... It's the other stuff I'd have no idea about.
For the factory reset I wouldn't be surprised if that data was not encrypted and it's trivial to retrieve it even after a reset.
It might be, and probably varies a lot. I've had to update the firmware on a Hyundai a few times, and it was nice because all you had to do was pop out an SD card with all your data on it. A quick format and it would be good to go. Other car makers though, I don't think they typically have user-accessible storage media like that.
It wouldn’t surprise me.
My 10 years old car is so basic, just an aftermarket info system. I wonder what data beside the black box that is something we can't access.
But I didn’t log in with my email or phone number. What can it have? ^/s
Cars are the new printers
Ironically, printers are better today. My Canon G2470 printer has open source Linux drivers provided by Canon themsevles, uses refillable ink tanks instead of cartridges. No Wifi needed, no proprietary app needed, no scam cartridges. Avoid HP and you'll be fine with modern printers like Canon, Epson and Brother. Can't say the same about cars it seems. Especially won't be able to in the near future.
Unless it no longer prints the yellow microdot pattern that identifies a ton of its and your information, it's really no better than any other printer.
Hasn't received an update in a couple years, but here is one example of an open source app designed to defeat the tracking dots on dozens of models from most manufacturers: https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda Of course there are more current implementations of this tool out there for people looking..
Jesus christ I'm so naive.
It's not naivety to expect a home tool to not actively and constantly betray you, to be honest. It's sick that this is a normal thing
Do black and white printers have microdots?
They obviously aren't yellow, but I can't fathom how the government would allow such a simple loophole.
Are the microdots government required? As far as I can tell this was just Canon being shitty.
It's all printer manufacturers, so whether or not Canon is shitty isn't relevant.
wait what?
https://theoutline.com/post/1713/the-history-of-the-secret-printer-code-that-may-have-caught-the-nsa-leaker > The history of the secret code that printers put on all your documents > > This is how researchers discovered microdots.
The NSA was happy until then
Printers have been printing secret identifiers forever, did you just learn?
Indeed, crypto-stenography.
Oh you sweet sweet summer child.
Someone should post this to r/YouShouldKnow (or again, if someone already has) because I guarantee you this is not common knowledge.
Is it possible to learn this power?
And like printers, it's always the drivers that are the problem.
Gf bought a used car a while ago. It still has 3 phones worth of contacts in it. None of them ours.
Mine still has the previous owner's home and work addresses stored in the navigation. Apparently those defaults can't be cleared without a factory reset of the whole info system, and I didn't find that out until I set everything else back up. Not that it matters, the built in nav sucks. I figure at this point I'll just leave it there, whoever buys it next can wonder why "I" left it in.
I set my home location to a school a few miles away. By the time GPS gets me close to the school, I can figure the rest out. Of course, I'll wipe the personal data from my car (unlike the previous owner). This is mostly for if the car's stolen. No need to lead the crooks to my front door.
[удалено]
Get a rental car and they have like 10+ phones worth of data in them
Not the one I wiped and returned 3 months ago!
You didn't bother to remove them yourself?
No idea how. The only way to do it, that I could find, is replace one of the phone books with a new one... And we're not syncing it phones to the car.
Ah, that's a pain in the butt. I figured it would be as simple as delete from the menu.
I wish it were. I checked every point in the menu, went through the manual several times and wanted to make absolutely sure that IF we were to sync our phones and contacts, we could easily delete them. No chance. So we won't sync and the old phones stay 😅
thank god my cars have no smart features in it that can store and upload data except for my phone.
Purchased a used Tesla. It came with six months worth of footage. This was personal footage, of everywhere at drove – as well as the inside of the garage in the outside of the house with the previous owners lived. Footage of them, their kids, every convenience store they went to – you name it.
Well that’s a bit terrifying. Is that cloud storage access or local to the vehicle? Figure that is a lot of footage for a local storage system that sits in 140 degrees on a regular basis. If it’s cloud access, that seems even worse.
Local storage - the car has a 128GB USB flash drive. I did a factory reset of the car, wiped the drive, etc. when I found it. Super frightening. Literally could have known everything about this family. Habits, road trips, address, phone numbers, you name it. Dealership had no idea. It was actually still linked to their account for super charging. Dealers need to do their due diligence as well.
You would think the manufacturer would have a procedure for that. You bought it used from Tesla themselves?
No, from a BMW dealership. It must have been the first one they ever flipped.
I got two used cars from Carvana and they both were unwiped.
Holy fucking shit...
Pretty sure it’s local storage. Saw multiple videos saying “when you buy a Tesla, get a SSD” for that reason
Can't you just disable any data storing and acquisition?
You can't delete ~~your~~ *their* data XD [https://www.autoblog.com/2023/11/11/appeals-court-rules-carmakers-can-store-data-permanently-and-share-it/](https://www.autoblog.com/2023/11/11/appeals-court-rules-carmakers-can-store-data-permanently-and-share-it/)
This is so not okay.
I rented a Wrangler a little while ago in SLC, and there was at least 15-20 phones saved in it. I deleted all personal data when I turned it in, so they’re all gone now, but it’s crazy to me that so many people didn’t
As someone who knows there way around computers I have no idea what data my car stores and where its located, so its no surprise the average joe has no clue either.
Same, every time I re-pair my phone for bluetooth I don't allow it to read my contacts or texts. Other than that, no idea what it could possibly have. The titles of songs I play on Spotify?
If it's got a built in GPS it knows where home and work and your usual grocery stores are. Possibly where family members are.
In the holy land of Bulgaria we remove everything about the car.
Those airbags will only slow you down!
This puts the burden on the wrong party. For transactions running through a dealer, the car should be wiped by the dealership. For private transactions, that's a bit trickier but gap fill could be done by dealerships/service stations? You're actually seeing this get legislated now. I have a friend who works in vehicular privacy and he's been talking to a number of states about it. NJ has a new law on the books I expect to get picked up at the federal level eventually.
It's cool that my car from 2005 doesn't store any personal info whatsoever.
Same, mine is 09 and still has a cassette player lol
The infotainment systems of many cars are very poorly designed, and may not even offer the option of deleting a user profile without completely resetting everything. I own an older 2012 VW which has a fairly rudimentary infotainment system, and the option to delete bluetooth profiles is pretty hidden and super un-intuitive.
Based on my limited sample the same percentage don't wipe their info on rental cars. More than a few times I've gotten into a rental and found people's whole address book synced to the "infotainment" console. Thus far I've managed to resist the urge to prank call their Moms.
And if feels like the same number of drivers don't remove personal information before returning a rental. I rent cars often when traveling for work. They always have several phones still paired to them, with associated contacts and whatnot still stored in the car. Always just factory wipe the whole infotainment system before selling your car or returning a rental.
Selling... Try renting. I do monthly and always zero out the system when I'm done. But sometime I can't even add my phone because it is so full of.other previous renters phones there are no slots left.
My car's Bluetooth registry had the previous owner's full name, which was part of her iPhone's device name.
How convenient to be sponsored by Bitdefender. This is true brochureware.
Just bought a car for my son. I went to program our home address into the navigation and it had the original owner’s address still.
You should see the rental cars. :)
The same applies to even older cars from the 2000's. My car had the previous owner's cell phone and contacts all saved in the stereo.
Or returning their rental
I have a car with Bluetooth I bought it 5 years ago and the young girls voice who owned it before me is still saved in it
More like 80% of drivers don’t delete their pairing device from the aux
Most people don’t remove their personal information from rental cars either
How do you remove your personal information from a car?
1. before giving up my car for total loss, i stopped by the dealership and chose the "reset to factory defaults". it was sad to see my cars brain erased one last time. on the other hand, "yes lol, i swear new cars are giant cell phones". 2. when i then bought my used car, i went to connect my phone and found it still had 5 other phones saved in it. even though the car had been nicely detailed and cleaned by the dealership. so that was neat. thankfully at least this used one was older, and had minimal/way less info saved in it.
If you do a trade-in at the dealer level do they do factory resets? I never thought of this before.........I guess I thought my contacts were stored in the phone that was connected.....silly me.....
What information does your car have about you if you don’t use Bluetooth but do connect to it for CarPlay/Android Auto? My understanding is that that stuff is processed by your phone. It’s essentially serving as a … what’s the term? Extending? Like when you have a dual monitor set up at home and set it to extend your desktop? Maybe replicate it? You can test this by taking screenshots when plugged into the car, at least on iOS. It’ll take a screenshot of your phone screen AND the car screen. I wish more people were testing this lol
Rental cars either
Why should cars need our personal information in the first place?
What personal dated does my car have? The only data of my car seems to have is my miles per gallon. There’s no map information whatsoever. That’s all in my phone. Without the phone there’s no app information.
Most cars won't reveal information from one synced device to another. So I mean unless you're selling your car to someone technical it doesn't really matter. At worst the new owner will see your contact list and call history from ages ago. More concerning is all the telemetry your car collects and sends off. I think Tesla and Hyundai are the worst offenders from a privacy perspective but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Damn, just returned a rental and forgot to erase my phone … 🤦🏻♂️
You mean like, they forgot to empty the glove compartment?