In its most significant enforcement action against the automotive industry since the start of the Trump administration, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) January 14 finalized a consent agreement with General Motors (GM) and its wholly owned telematics subsidiary, OnStar.
The agreement resolves allegations that the companies collected, used and sold precise geolocation and driving-behavior data from millions of vehicles without adequately informing consumers or obtaining their affirmative consent. The final order approved by the FTC imposes a five-year ban on GM disclosing consumers’ geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies.
In addition, for the 20 year duration of the order, GM is also required to: obtain affirmative express consent from consumers before collecting, using or sharing connected vehicle data (including sharing data with consumer reporting agencies), with some exceptions such as for providing location data to emergency first responders; create a way for all U.S. consumers to request a copy of their data and seek its deletion; give consumers the ability to disable the collection of precise geolocation data from their vehicles if their vehicle has the necessary technology; and, provide a way for consumers to opt out of the collection of geolocation and driver behavior data, with some limited exceptions.
