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.
I suggest using public transport since that is almost impossible to do
If you live somewhere like NYC, Chicago or San Francisco I don’t see the problem
You’d better be leaving your phone at home every time you drive that car or you’ve defeated the point
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
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?
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
Are you sure your car actually has a simcard?
edit rereading I see youre asking about a potential car for the future.
I found very little info- except this, which hints at having network connectivity without a simcard (and also discusses swapping sims). But I found very little else
https://intotomorrow.com/can-you-swap-the-sim-card-in-your-car/
A second link about someone asking whether they should remove the card before returning the car. The advice says to take it out. Which implies to me, for this car at least, itll function without a sim
https://www.fpaceforum.com/threads/leave-or-remove-sim-when-turning-car-in.47642/
I doubt any modern car with those features have a physical sim card you can remove. They are probably all using some sort of esim. On some cars the antennas can be unplugged but that depends on the specific model. If you’re unlucky, you will not even be able to remove the tracking features at all because they are integrated with other components needed to function.
With regards to the legality of that, I unfortunately cant help you there. Probably best to search for local cases or ask a local lawyer.
Your best option in probably buing a used car thats old enogh not to track you. Hope that helps a bit
I can’t speak to the legality, but if you own the vehicle 100%, I can’t see removing parts from the vehicle being illegal as long as they don’t impinge on road safety.
I would recommend removing more than just the SIM card, if the radios have their own fuse, take the fuse out, or physically remove the radios themselves.
Yep. It’s your car to do with it what you want. The ADRs (Australian Design Rules) only apply at point of sale. Once it’s yours, it merely needs meet roadworthy requirements. As long as you keep a functioning speedo, wipers and lights, you can rip out every bit of electronics in the car.
