Cadillac Smart Driver and Privacy Concerns

[Worldrider]

How did you opt out online?
I just received a renewal notice from AAA and I am MAD! My premium went up 50% on my blackwing and my other cars.

I think GM owes you more than just an apology…

 

[NorCal Blackwing]

How did you opt out online?
I just received a renewal notice from AAA and I am MAD! My premium went up 50% on my blackwing and my other cars.

I'm a Bay Area AAA customer and my rates went up similarly - but I don't think it's LexisNexis. All kinds of insurance (homeowners in particular) is going bananas in California and I've had Smart Driver disabled since Day 1.

 

[btown]

Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored?

The insurance industry, hungry for insights into how people drive, has turned to automakers and smartphone apps like Life360.

www.nytimes.com

Good article on this today. Some good resources to improve your privacy.

 

[SynisterAZ]

Yeah I was alarmed to see that the MyRadar app was in on the driving data game since I use it frequently but its not as bad as it seems.

The feature is called MyDrive and its defaulted to off, turning it on does clearly state your driving data is going to be shared.

However, there is another setting I found about general sharing of data with 3rd parties that is defaulted to on so did disable that.

 

[rdollie]

Great...I just un-installed MyRadar and GasBuddy. God only knows how many other things are reporting driving data to the insurance industry!!

 

[sps4runner]

Can't access the article...

 

[coffee_time]

Can't access the article...

Gift article: Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored?

 

[BKC1]

Here's a potential solution to disable the LTE antenna and remove Onstar's ability to track you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/comments/16h91a6/i_made_a_step_by_step_guide_to_disable_onstar_on

https://imgur.com/a/n00QKnH

The solution costs $15 in parts. These are the required parts:

• SMA Female to Fakra Z Female Cable
• SMA Male 50 Ohm Terminator

If the following fits in the storage compartment it'll be cleaner and prevent the cable rattling around:

• SMA Female to Fakra Z Female Plug

Not sure if this will work for gen 3 and gen 4 cars or just one or the other. Per the Reddit thread, results are mixed. Some people say it works, some say they still have signal. Will report back with results and/or amended parts list for the CTS-V3/ATS-V. I can't do the CT4-V/CT5-V so someone else will have to contribute.

As shown above, the Fakra connectors are fundamentally interchangeable, but have different key configurations, preventing you from improperly plugging connectors together. The type Z connector, however, has no keys and can plug into any other connector type.

If this solution doesn't work, the alternative method to remove the eSIM card is as follows:

See attached PDF for more concise instructions. Note that the PDF is from a different topic where they were installing a different SIM in the car, but it requires the same process as the eSIM removal shown in the video.

 

[Joespenard]

Here's a potential solution to disable the LTE antenna and remove Onstar's ability to track you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/comments/16h91a6/i_made_a_step_by_step_guide_to_disable_onstar_on

https://imgur.com/a/n00QKnH

The solution costs $15 in parts. These are the required parts:

• SMA Female to Fakra Z Female Cable
• SMA Male 50 Ohm Terminator

If the following fits in the storage compartment it'll be cleaner and prevent the cable rattling around:

• SMA Female to Fakra Z Female Plug

Not sure if this will work for gen 3 and gen 4 cars or just one or the other. Per the Reddit thread, results are mixed. Some people say it works, some say they still have signal. Will report back with results and/or amended parts list for the CTS-V3/ATS-V. I can't do the CT4-V/CT5-V so someone else will have to contribute.

View attachment 26517

As shown above, the Fakra connectors are fundamentally interchangeable, but have different key configurations, preventing you from improperly plugging connectors together. The type Z connector, however, has no keys and can plug into any other connector type.

If this solution doesn't work, the alternative method to remove the eSIM card is as follows:

See attached PDF for more concise instructions. Note that the PDF is from a different topic where they were installing a different SIM in the car, but it requires the same process as the eSIM removal shown in the video.

THX.

 

[leres]

If this solution doesn't work, the alternative method to remove the eSIM card is as follows:

See attached PDF for more concise instructions. Note that the PDF is from a different topic where they were installing a different SIM in the car, but it requires the same process as the eSIM removal shown in the video.

When I was looking into neutering onstar in my 2nd gen CTS-V I considered using a 50Ω terminator but I was worried that the little ones couldn't handle the power so I got a 10W "dummy load" like this:



In the end I figured out the cellular modem (and GPS) was on a daughter card and I could just remove a jumper to disable it, keeping bluetooth. I did the same thing to my Z06.

The chevy bolt conversion to physical sim look interesting. I think moving the jumpers (0Ω resistors) makes the swap between internal (esim) and physical sim. My guess is if you just moved the jumpers and did not install a sim socket (or sim) onstar would be disabled.

The GM part number for a 2023 CT5 telematics module appears to be 86519090. That module has FCC id BEJTTAG11NE. Looking at the internal pictures I see what looks like an unpopulated sim socket near the top of the board:



It's too bad the resolution of the picture is so bad, it's difficult to see if this board has the same jumper setup as the bolt version...