Privacy implication of Bluetooth pairing GrapheneOS with car

jorgemorais

Hi. Since about a month, I use the latest GrapheneOS on my new Pixel 7a.

I never pair my smartphone with my car since, a few years ago, I read that modern cars are an unmitigated privacy disaster. Does GrapheneOS help here? What are the privacy implication of Bluetooth pairing GrapheneOS with a car?

I basically want to:

Play smartphone audio on the car speakers for OsmAnd and maybe music and other audio files.
Receive voice calls.

Regards

other8026

jorgemorais I'm not sure if this is from GrapheneOS or AOSP, but when connecting to a car the phone will ask if I will permit the car to access my contacts and call logs.

I play music and also get directions from my GPS app via bluetooth audio.

de0u

jorgemorais Does GrapheneOS help here? What are the privacy implication of Bluetooth pairing GrapheneOS with a car?

Possible future harm reduction: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2304

bayerelm

I'm really interested in this topic as well and I'm hoping some of the very knowledgeable people of this forum will respond.

My 2cents on this: you can refuse to share call logs and contacts info with your car, so that's a plus. Also, grapheneos randomizes the phone's Bluetooth address (I can't recall if that's done for every connection or for every different connected device), so I guess that helps protecting the user's privacy as well.

User2288

bayerelm Also, grapheneos randomizes the phone's Bluetooth address (I can't recall if that's done for every connection or for every different connected device),

Are you sure about this? Can you refer a source?

From what i recall ranfomization is done for the wifi mac but not bluetooth mac. I would be interested in a definitive answer on this.

morapelor

If you care about the 'privacy disaster' of your modern car then you would go to the root of the problem and disable the car's ability to send data outside of it. If you didn't do that then why are you worried about what your phone may or may not be doing when bluetooth tethered to it since your data is already completely compromised?

AloofChocolate

@NaomiBrockwellTV has a good piece on this subject, it is more invasive than people realise.
Google's tracking system isn't as effective as those car manufacturers' in terms of data collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIryvRwxp9A