FTC bans General Motors from selling driver data for five years

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and OnStar for allegedly sharing details about drivers to third parties without their consent. The agency launched an investigation into the automotive company after The New York Times that GM had collected data about customers’ vehicle use and sold it to third-party platforms used by insurance companies.

The information came from the OnStar Smart Driver program, which customers with GM vehicles were encouraged to participate in or didn’t realize they had agreed to join. The program gathered data about behaviors such as hard braking, late 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 the Times report, GM said it had stopped sharing the sensitive information with the two data brokers.

Today, the FTC proposed a settlement that will see both GM and OnStar banned from disclosing consumers’ geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. These companies will also be ordered to take additional steps to increase the transparency and choice for customers surrounding the information they collect and share.

“GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan . “With this action, the FTC is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.”