Cite as: Real Problem AI problem “Why is my car still selling my driving data after I switched off every setting I could find?”. Opportunity score 7.3 out of 10 (severity 7, AI feasibility 6, market signal 9, competition gap 7). Category Automotive & Mobility. Trend Agents. Source signal: Hacker News discussion of a column on car data sold to third parties, 13 September 2026, 483 points, 262 comments.. Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/archive/why-is-my-car-still-selling-my-driving-data-after-i-switched-off-every-setting-i-could-find.
Why is my car still selling my driving data after I switched off every setting I could find?
Drivers turn off connected services and delete the companion app, then find their mileage and trips still show up at data brokers and history reports, with no way to see what the car sends or to whom.
Who has it: Privacy-minded car owners, used car buyers and sellers, and anyone whose insurance price could move on data they never agreed to share.
Evidence
“I can only assume the telemetry was still dialing home and selling to third parties despite my best efforts to disable it.”
Quoted word for word from the public post linked below. Nobody submitted it to Real Problem AI.
Hacker News discussion of a column on car data sold to third parties, 13 September 2026, 483 points, 262 comments.Why it is archived
Trimmed to 100-cap (lowest opportunity_score)
Scoring breakdown
Existing players
- Privacy4Cars Vehicle Privacy Report · Explains what a given make and model collects in general, not what your own car has sent.
- LexisNexis consumer disclosure request · Lets you request the file a broker holds on you, by a slow manual request with no follow-up.
- Automaker connected services settings · Opt-outs are spread across the app, the head unit and the account, and the thread shows data still leaking after all three.
What they are missing
A guided tool that, for one specific VIN, lists every opt-out path for that brand, files the data access and deletion requests with the automaker and the known brokers, tracks the replies, and checks history reports later to show whether the data actually stopped.
Stack hint
#OCT2 · Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/archive/why-is-my-car-still-selling-my-driving-data-after-i-switched-off-every-setting-i-could-find