GoKawiilFTC penalty on GM exposes widespread auto industry data sales to brokers
The FTC banned General Motors for five years from selling customer driving data to consumer reporting agencies after finding the automaker had collected details like speeding and nighttime driving through its OnStar Smart Driver feature and passed them to data brokers LexisNexis and Verisk, which serve insurers. Many drivers say they didn't realize they had consented to this tracking, and some reported their insurance rates rose as a result. Research from the Mozilla Foundation found nearly every major automaker has similarly weak privacy protections and overlapping, confusing consent policies for vehicle data.