Your car followed you And data collectionThat alone is enough to worry many people, but a recent letter sent by two US Senators to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reveals something even more frightening: The data is being sold to insurance companies for very little money.
New York Times Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts — both privacy advocates — sent a letters sent to the FTC on July 26. In it, the senators called out General Motors, Hyundai, and Honda for collecting driving data from customers’ cars. The data collected included information such as how fast drivers accelerated, how hard they braked, and how often they exceeded the speed limit. The data was then sold to insurance companies so they could assess drivers’ risk, the letter said.
One of the surprising findings of the investigation by Senator Wyden’s office is how little automakers make from selling driving data. According to the letter, data analytics firm Verisk paid Honda $25,920 over four years for information on 97,000 cars, or 26 cents per car. Hyundai was paid more than $1 million, or 61 cents per car, over six years.
While GM did not say exactly how much it sold the data for, sources familiar with the matter said Time Automakers sold data from more than eight million cars for “low millions of dollars.” Even worse is how automakers informed drivers that their data was being collected. Time Hyundai says it collects data on any car that has an internet connection. GM and Honda have given drivers the option to opt in, but Senator Wyden says that’s misleading.
Since Initial report above data collectionGM has stopped collecting the data. However, a letter from the automaker to the FTC said the automaker is still sharing location data, that “it does not seek customers’ permission to share their vehicle’s location,” and that the only way to stop location sharing is to turn off the vehicle’s internet connection. Hyundai and Honda have both issued statements about the situation. Time:
Honda spokesman Chris Martin said Verisk provided driver scoring services to customers and “no customer identifiable information is shared with any insurance company” without the customer’s consent.
Hyundai also offers a driver-scoring service. Ira Gabriel, a company spokesman, said the terms and conditions of its Bluelink connected-car service inform customers that data will be shared with Verisk when they activate Bluelink at a dealership. Verisk only shares data with insurance companies with the customer’s consent, Gabriel said.
“Verisk paid Hyundai for potential future earnings from customers who actively opted in to the insurance feature,” he said in a statement.
Time said this is the third letter the FTC has received from Congress calling for an investigation into the data collection. Senators Wyden and Markey hope that FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan will look into the issue, with their letter saying that Americans’ driving data should not be sold without their consent:
…this is especially insulting to automakers who sell cars for tens of thousands of dollars and then make a few extra cents in profit off consumers’ personal data.
