The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and OnStar for allegedly sharing details about drivers with third parties without their consent. The agency launched an investigation into the automotive company after The New York Times that GM collects data about customers’ vehicle usage and sells it to third-party platforms used by insurance companies.
The information comes from the OnStar Smart Driver program, in which customers with GM vehicles are encouraged to participate or don’t realize they’ve agreed to participate. The program gathered data about behaviors such as hard braking, night driving and speeding and reportedly sold the information to LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk, which in turn sold that data to insurance companies. Shortly after Times report, GM SAYS it stopped sharing sensitive information with the two data brokers.
Now, the FTC is proposing a settlement that would see GM and OnStar barred from disclosing consumer geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. These companies are also being ordered to take additional steps to increase transparency and choice for customers surrounding the information they collect and share.
“GM monitors and sells accurate people’s geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan . “With this action, the FTC is protecting Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unwarranted surveillance.”