Stop your Toyota from selling your driving data

Vetted in the open. Reviewed by 3 editors against 6 cited sources. Every step below was re-tested this month. See Sources below.

What your car actually collects

If your Toyota was built after roughly 2018 and has the Connected Services package, its onboard Data Communication Module (DCM) has its own cellular modem. It can report precise GPS location, speed, hard-braking and acceleration events, seatbelt use, trip times, and the contacts and call logs you sync over Bluetooth. Much of this leaves the car whether or not you ever opened the app.

The fastest way to see your own exposure is to pull a free Vehicle Privacy Report for your VIN, which lists exactly who your car shares data with. Do that first. It tells you which of the steps below you need.

Tip: Pull your LexisNexis Risk Solutions consumer disclosure report at the same time. If your driving data is already being sold to insurers, it shows up there, and you will want a deletion request in flight before you finish.

The opt-out, step by step

1. Pull your Vehicle Privacy Report. Enter your VIN at a free vehicle-privacy lookup to see exactly what your model collects and who it is shared with. This confirms which of the steps below apply to you.
2. Turn off data sharing in the Toyota app. Open the Toyota app, go to Account → Privacy & Data, and switch off “Data Sharing,” “Insights,” and any usage-based-insurance program. These are the toggles that feed brokers and insurers.
3. Deactivate Connected Services by phone. Call Toyota Connected Services and ask them to fully deactivate data collection on your VIN. App toggles do not always stop the DCM; a phone request creates a record and forces it server-side.
4. Delete your data at the broker layer. Toyota has already shared with brokers like LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk. Request your consumer file from each, then file a deletion and sale opt-out using the template below.
5. Reset before you ever sell the car. Factory-reset the head unit, remove the vehicle from your app account, and de-link any paired phones so the next owner does not inherit your trips, contacts, and home address.

Heads up: Fully disabling Connected Services also disables automatic crash notification and SOS. Decide if that trade-off is right for you; most people keep emergency SOS and only kill the marketing and insurance data-sharing toggles.

Copy-paste deletion request

Send this to the broker’s privacy desk (or paste it into their web form). Swap in your details.

Subject: CCPA/CPRA Request to Know & Delete

Under applicable state privacy law, I request that you:
1. Disclose the categories and specific pieces of vehicle
   telematics data you hold about me;
2. Disclose every third party you have sold or shared it
   with; and
3. Delete all of it and opt me out of future sale/sharing.

Name: [your name]
VIN: [your VIN]
Address: [address on file]

Sources

1. Vehicle Privacy Report: data-sharing lookup by VIN - Privacy4Cars
2. It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category for Privacy - Mozilla *Privacy Not Included
3. Automakers shared driving data with insurers, raising rates - The New York Times, 2024
4. Request your consumer disclosure report - LexisNexis Risk Solutions
5. Vehicle Data Collection & Opting Out - Toyota owner support
6. Toyota Privacy Portal - Toyota