Does anyone know about the legality of removing the built-in sim cards from your car, specifically in Australia?

I don’t intend on using any car smart-features when I get one. For context, I’ve never owned a car. When I do get one though, I intend to remove the sim card to prevent the car’s location from being constantly tracked. All I care about in terms a cars functionality is a radio, a CD drive (Yes, I use CD’s), and Bluetooth audio, so I don’t think removing the sim card should affect this much, if at all. Any knowledge and advice would be appreciated, thankyou!

Update: What I was referring to is an eSim, which appears not to be in the form of a physical card. Even so, if possible, I would like to disable the functionality of this eSim assuming the car I purchase has one in-built. From my research, I cannot find anything that explicitly forbids disabling or removing Sims.

  • ealoe@ani.socialEnglish
    10·
    5 months ago

    You’d better be leaving your phone at home every time you drive that car or you’ve defeated the point

    • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
      41·
      5 months ago

      Not necessarily true. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough. Limiting the number of organizations that have your data is a good thing. There’s no reason the car vendor needs that data

      • doona@aussie.zoneEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        Why would a car manufacturer give you cellular service for free? If you don’t pay for subscriptions, surely they’re not seeing any of your car’s data?

        • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
          6·
          5 months ago

          The telemetry from your car has value, plus if they control your infotainment system they can constantly try to upsell you to subscribe or buy other features.

          Not to mention when we’re talking about on a car manufacturer, they can negotiate fleet-wide data access for all the vehicles. With an agreement with the manufacturer that if the user actually buys data access for themselves, they split the profit with the carrier

          • doona@aussie.zoneEnglish
            7·
            5 months ago

            So new cars have always-on cellular connectivity regardless of subscriptions paid? That’s insane. The auto industry is a genuine menace.

            • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
              5·
              5 months ago

              Not all new cars. But some. Whenever you get a vehicle, it’s probably a good idea to buy one of those aftermarket service manuals sold to car mechanics for your make and model. Then you can verify radio repair etc etc and what circuits to take out etc

              Besides if you’re trying to do information upsell, you don’t want your customer to have to go to a cell phone store and buy a SIM card and put it in the car. That’s extra friction they might change their mind. You want it to be always on and available, so they can just consent and get into the funnel

              • doona@aussie.zoneEnglish
                2·
                5 months ago

                Good advice even when buying an older car. I wonder if there’s a shitlist for the manufacturers who have this crap pre-installed and always running?

        • root@aussie.zoneEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          Consider the possibility that they are selling the data collected from you for a profit and using part of those profits to pay for the cellular service.

    • explore_broaden@midwest.socialEnglish
      9·
      5 months ago

      Also there’s many more settings on a phone to disable share your location for most uses vs on a car where it seems like your location goes straight to insurance companies.

    • Tazerface@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      Airplane mode - callers can leave a message. VoIP - it’s connected via wifi or mobile data. I’m in Canada but the three times I checked where my IP says I am, it was in UK or NL. Of course there are alternative OSs for androids.