General Motors Barred From Selling Driver Data for 5 Years
General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar will be banned from sharing drivers’ precise geolocation and driving behavior data with consumer reporting agencies for five years under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Trade Commission. explain in a version released Thursday.
The action addresses privacy concerns surrounding GM’s now-defunct Intelligent Driver program, which allegedly collected and sold private data on millions of vehicles without properly notifying consumers or obtaining their consent. . Such data may be used to determine insurance rates.
The settlement also seeks to resolve issues related to GM’s OnStar service, which is marketed as an emergency assistance and navigation tool. The FTC said GM’s unclear registration process led some customers to unknowingly share sensitive location data that could reveal intimate aspects of their daily lives, such as late-night trips to the hospital.
“General Motors monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” FTC Chairwoman Lena Khan claimed in a press release. “The FTC is protecting Americans’ privacy and protecting people from uncontrolled surveillance.”
The FTC said GM and OnStar must also implement new measures to provide greater transparency and give consumers more control over how their connected vehicle data is collected and used.
General Motors explain In a press release, the company has taken steps to improve consumer privacy, including discontinuing its Smart Driver program for all vehicles and terminating relationships with third-party data brokers.
“The FTC’s consent order includes new measures that go beyond existing law while covering steps we’ve already taken to communicate choices about how our customer data is collected and how that information is used,” GM said.
