General Motors Barred From Selling Driver Data for 5 Years

General Motors and subsidiary OnStar will be banned for five years from sharing drivers' precise geolocation and driving behavior data with consumer reporting agencies, under a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission, the FTC said in a release Thursday.

The action addresses privacy concerns about GM's now-discontinued Smart Driver program, which allegedly collected and sold private data from millions of vehicles without properly notifying consumers or obtaining their consent. Such data could potentially be used to determine insurance rates.

The settlement also aims to address issues around GM's OnStar service, which was marketed as an emergency aid and navigation tool. The FTC alleged that GM's enrollment process was unclear, leading some customers to unknowingly share sensitive location data that could reveal intimate aspects of their daily lives, such as a late-night visit to a hospital.

"GM monitored and sold people's precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds," FTC Chair Lina Khan alleged in the release. "The FTC is safeguarding Americans' privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance."

The FTC said GM and OnStar must also implement new measures to provide greater transparency and give consumers more control over how their connected vehicle data is collected and used.

GM said in a release that it's already taken steps to improve consumer privacy, including discontinuing its Smart Driver program across all vehicles and ending its relationship with third-party data brokers.

"The FTC consent order includes new measures that go above and beyond existing law, while capturing steps we've already taken to establish choices for customer data collection and communications about how the information is used," GM said.