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.
As others have said it will likely be an ESIM or similar solution because there isn’t a need for the manufacturer to support physical SIMs.
Regarding being tracked though, Australia has ANPR just like most other developed countries, you will be trackable even if your car was just a Flintstones car with a numberplate.
I’d also add if you’ve got a phone in your pocket, that’s just as trackable
This is more about the car maker harvesting data, rather than just tracking the car. Car makers have been (quietly) building more tech into their cars to collect data for the purposes of selling it to third parties. It’s effectively the enshittification of cars.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-09/toyota-car-brands-collecting-driver-data-privacy-concerns-laws/103443500