Your car is selling your data

• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined General Motors $1.2 billion for selling customer data to third-party data brokers, and imposed a five-year ban on data sales.
• GM collected data on drivers' driving habits, such as speed and nighttime driving, and shared it with insurance companies through brokers LexisNexis and Verisk.
• The FTC settlement requires GM to make it easier for drivers to opt out of data collection and access their data.

• A Mozilla Foundation study found that all major car companies have "horrible privacy and security" policies, and drivers are forced to accept overlapping policies for vehicles, connected services, smartphones, and financial services.
• Consumer Reports found that nearly every U.S. automaker collects and shares "driver behavior data" with other companies.
• Cars are more problematic than smartphones because privacy controls are less intuitive, making it harder for consumers to understand what data is being collected.

• The DRIVER Act, introduced by House Republicans, gives vehicle owners more control over their data but allows automakers to continue collecting and selling it to third-party data brokers.
• Privacy advocates argue that access and deletion rights do not prevent excessive data collection, and automakers have incentives to keep collecting data for profit.
• The Freedom Car concept, proposed by Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, allows for non-automated vehicles and bans government requirements for automated driving systems or wireless data transmission.
• Automakers have privacy pages where drivers can opt out of data collection, but these pages are buried in legalese and difficult to find.
• The New York Times' investigation into GM's data collection program highlights how drivers are unaware of the extent of data sharing and its impact on insurance rates.

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