The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sanctioned General Motors (GM) for sharing drivers’ precise location and driving behavior data without consent.
The agency in a press release on 16 January said that GM and OnStar, its subsidiary, will be banned for five years from disclosing consumers’ sensitive data to consumer reporting agencies.
This is the FTC’s first action related to vehicle data, even though it has engaged in several cases of consumer deception and others.
Violating users’ privacy
The FTC filed a complaint alleging that they used a misleading enrollment process to get consumers to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service and the OnStar Smart Driver feature.
Unknown to the car owners, the service harvested their information and shared it with consumer reporting agencies, and GM did not disclose this to its customers. FTC Chair Lina M. Khan commented saying:
“GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds. With this action, the FTC is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.”
OnStar was initially a service that would aid consumers during an emergency and provide hands-free voice assistance and real-time traffic and navigation.
However, GM later increased the amount of data it collects through OnStar to include precise geolocation data as often as every three seconds for some users.
According to the FTC, Tracking and collecting geolocation data can be extremely privacy-invasive, revealing some of the most intimate details about a person’s life.
Based on this, the agency is proposing an order prohibiting GM and OnStar from misrepresenting information about how they collect, use, and share consumers’ location and driver behavior data.
The order also seeks to stop GM from disclosing covered driver data to consumer reporting agencies and compel it to seek consumer consent before collecting their data.
The FTC also wants GM to allow users to obtain and delete their data as well as limit data collection from their vehicles.
Other FTC actions
The FTC has been active, protecting consumers from several businesses seeking to exploit them and in some cases, refund payments to them.
In 2024, the agency fined Epic Games for illegally billing users for expenses they did not intend to bear.
This year, it banned stem cell treatments and ordered the companies to refund to their customers who were deceived into buying unproven treatments.