The target is EZ Lynk, a Cayman Islands company that makes the Auto Agent app and a matching dongle that plugs into a vehicle's OBD-II port. The DOJ first sued EZ Lynk back in 2021, accusing the company of manufacturing and selling defeat devices designed to strip emissions controls from diesel vehicles in violation of the Clean Air Act. EZ Lynk denies that characterisation, saying its products serve legitimate purposes including performance monitoring, software updates, and standard diagnostics.
Four years later, the case is still grinding through the courts and the government wants witnesses. Federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to Apple and Google in March and April 2026, demanding names, addresses, phone numbers and account data for everyone who downloaded the Auto Agent app. Amazon and Walmart received separate requests for the names and addresses of customers who bought the physical hardware. The total number of people caught in that net is at least 100,000, and could run considerably higher.
The DOJ's argument is that anyone who handed over personal information to EZ Lynk and clicked through its terms and conditions no longer holds "a cognizable privacy interest as to that information." In plain English: you agreed to it, so you can't complain now.
EZ Lynk's lawyers are pushing back hard. In a joint court filing earlier this month, they called the requests a serious overstep.
"These requests for potentially hundreds of thousands of people's PII go well beyond the needs of this case and create serious privacy concerns. Investigating this claim does not require identifying each person who has used the product."
Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have raised concerns that innocent users who downloaded the app purely for legitimate diagnostics could find themselves swept up in a federal investigation through no fault of their own. Apple and Google are reportedly preparing to contest the subpoenas in court.
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EZ Lynk also revealed in its court filing that this is not the first time the government has come after its customers. The company says that back in 2019, the government requested a backdoor into the EZ Lynk system itself. That request went nowhere.
There is no question that some EZ Lynk users have deployed the hardware to delete diesel particulate filters and exhaust gas recirculation systems and then reflash the engine control unit to cover the changes. Evidence of that is spread across forums and social media. But the app has a large legitimate user base too, and the DOJ's sweep does not distinguish between the two.
The case has implications that reach well beyond one tuning company. If the government can use civil litigation discovery to compel Apple and Google to unmask over 100,000 app store customers at once, the app you downloaded last week could become a federal paper trail whenever prosecutors decide they need one.
Sources
- Gizmodo — DOJ Is Asking Apple and Google to Hand Over Data on 100,000 Users of a Car App
- The Drive — DOJ Orders Apple, Google to Hand Over OBDII App User Data in Emissions Probe
- ppc.land — DOJ demands Apple, Google and Amazon unmask 100,000+ car app users
- Inc. — Amazon, Apple, and Google Subpoenaed in DOJ Case About Car Emissions
- DOJ original suit (2021) — Manhattan U.S. Attorney Sues EZ Lynk
