Toyota reveals where your connected car data goes

Toyota Australia has confirmed that some data from its connected vehicles is processed and stored overseas in the Americas and South-East Asia, as the number of connected Toyotas on local roads passed 1 million.

Senior executives at Toyota Australia said the majority of the data was hosted in secure data centres in Australia, and that protecting it was as important as protecting customers on the road.

Toyota introduced connected services on the Yaris Cross in 2020, and the tech has since spread across the range at a rapid clip.

“Toyota recently passed an incredible milestone, with more than one million Toyota-connected vehicles landing in Australia since we first introduced the technology,” said Toyota Australia’s Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations John Pappas.

The headline feature is automatic collision notification (ACN). In a significant crash, the car automatically dials an Australian-based call centre that operates 24/7 to alert emergency services.

An SOS button does the same job manually. Both are standard and free on every Toyota fitted with connected services.

“Since we introduced this feature, Toyota has supported over 10,000 customers who required urgent assistance, potentially saving thousands of lives,” Pappas said.

But where does all that data live? Pappas was upfront.

“Safety remains a priority when it comes to the security of the data. As I have said before, protecting customer data is as essential as protecting their safety on the road,” he said.

“Our data systems are hosted in secure data centres, the majority of which are located in Australia, with some data also processed and stored in secure Toyota-managed environments in North America and Singapore.”

That’s an interesting admission at a time when debate over where connected-car data ends up has largely focused on Chinese-built vehicles, which continue to surge.

BYD alone has sold 76,614 vehicles year-to-date according to September 2026 VFACTS data, up 102 per cent, roughly half of Toyota’s 152,944.

Toyota didn’t detail exactly which data is sent offshore, or what it’s used for.

With every new Toyota now rolling out of the showroom plugged into the network, that one million figure will keep climbing quickly.

Back in 2024 Choice claimed that the big car companies collecting owners driving data were often sending it offshore, with Tesla, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia among the brands identified.

More recently Toyota and Hyundai have been investigated by the Australian privacy watchdog over their data practices particularly in relation to data collection, sharing and deletion.

Expect questions about data sovereignty to get louder too, and not just for the Chinese brands.

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