General Motors Is Banned from Selling Driving Behavior Data for 5 Years

> What can be done about this as a consumer looking to buy a new car?

For a consumer in the US, I have no idea, but I'm guessing your question is about that since the story is US-specific?

Probably off-topic, but buying a car in 2019 in Spain, they asked me if I'm OK with data-collection during the purchase, up until car delivery, and handed me a contract to sign for "treatment of personal data". I said no, we moved on.

After buying the car (2018 Audi A3), they threw in some remote-monitoring sensor "for free" that could let me/them see metrics about the car, for "maintenance" and whatever they claimed, that they offered to install. I again said "no", but kept the device itself to pick apart at some later time.

But overall, they seem required to ask (here, EU) but no one batted an eye when I said no. The car has a SIM-card reader, but never used it, I'm guessing if I install a SIM-card the car would ask me if data collection is OK, because we'll always have the choice at least.

Electric cars seems like a no-no for now (everywhere possibly), since all of them came with a "always on connection" regardless of what I want, at least last time I checked.

Sometimes I feel bad for repeating myself but relevant threads keep appearing.

Mazda won't permit me to use remote start because I refused to install their app and enable connected services. The man I worked with on the lease was extraordinarily aggressive with me. Almost demanding I install and register this app to complete lease agreement.

So now I don't have remote start and every time I turn the car on I have to select cancel on an infotainment prompt asking me to enable connected services.

The TOS specifically says driving data will be sold to 3rd parties including law enforcement and insurance companies.

Unfortunately, a car like Tesla collects so much data. And it's only a matter of time before they start selling it. I don't know if any other car company that collects more data than Tesla.

> Can I corrupt data transmission and collection?

In my 2018 Chevy Volt Premier it's not too difficult to disconnect the LTE module. You lose OnStar, remote start, and other "connected" features, but the car and CarPlay still work.

https://www.jamesxli.com/2024/chevy-volt-disable-cellular.ht...

I own a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan. No tracking. Runs Great. I just keep fixing it, much cheaper than a new car. Plus I can live in it as well.

I do not know the year they started with all the tracking stuff but you can find an older car that does not have any tracking and spend the rest of the money making it mint.

There is no getting away from it though, we are all watched over by the machines of loving grace. You know with the new LoRaWAN and IoT everywhere scam they are rolling out there will be nothing you can do to escape the surveillance apparatus.

I am giving up. no sense in fighting it anymore. I am just a good little corporate boy toy now.

Research the car ahead of time and figure out how to disconnect the telematics control unit (or whatever that manufacturer calls it).

I am deeply interested in better understanding faraday cages that can block transmission.

My plan is to buy an old 1960-1970 280SL (or, really, any somewhat reliable vintage car) and stubbornly refuse to drive anything else.

They don’t give a shit about privacy directly but GM was egregious in collecting this data

- confusing consumers

- sneakily signing up consumers to “smart driver” as part of onstar

- data brokers subsequently building profiles on users and selling this data to _insurance companies_

- consumers later finding out their insurance doesn’t get renewed because of this secret driver profile that was built without their explicit consent

If GM followed the rules by disclosing this directly, allowing consumers to opt out. They probably wouldn’t be in this embarrassing position.

It’s in the FTC release: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...

This is largely the work of Lina Khan and the people reporting to her. She's fairly new to the FTC still (Biden appointee) and has been intentionally pushing on all of this.

Protecting it is difficult since the house/senate and scotus are all determined to roll back pro-consumer laws but that's not really something the FTC can fix, only voters can fix that.

Voters don't seem to see these things as important though based on how they voted most recently. They have other priorities I suppose.

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> After all, if I installed spying software on GM's computers, and sold the extracted data to, say, Toyota, I'd face hefty fines. And spend time in prison.

You're going about this all wrong. Setup a company, create a landing page and do some B2B contracts for selling that data, and you too can be a "Data Broker" fully legally. But yes, approaching this as an individual is most likely illegal, you're supposed to do it as a corporation.

Probably a class action lawsuit in the future, if one does not already exist.

Jail time? Probably not, we let health insurance companies get away with taking away critical needs from patients and delaying care in the name of delivering shareholder value. The best they get is a slap on the wrist from the government, let alone jail time.

But not if you sold GM software that had a clause deep in the license agreement saying you'd sell the data to Toyota.

What if in this case it was about keeping the accident rate low by incentivizing safe driving? Don't know if I agree with them doing it, but it's probably not an argument that any side would win, and we don't even truly know if it would be a negative or a positive for society when looking at it from every angle.

Yeah and it’s simple to reidentify anonymous location traces. The simplest way is to buy cell phone location data from apps, which is generally intermittent, but even with just 5-6 location/time pairs, you’re going to be able to positively identify someone, with the small caveat that there will be some ambiguity with members of a household that share a car.

Collecting and selling the data is legal if they give you the chance to opt out. They went out of their way to avoid giving you that chance, and that’s what they got in trouble for. So the five year ban is a penalty for breaking the actual law, which is just that the consumer should have a chance to say no.

Yes I don't understand the "5 Years" part at all.

Either it's illegal or it isn't.

No judge ever says "I ban you from burgling houses for 5 years!", like after 5 years it would be okay again.

I'll confess I was sceptical about this but, at minimum, the database seems to exist.

There's a company called Carfax that I'd never heard of. Their EU site seems to provide basic reports about the VIN, whether the car has been written off, etc. Those basic "Is this car sale a scam?" checks are common in the UK.

But the site also makes a big deal about "Get the American report!" So I googled "Carfax oil change" and found people talking about the oil change history in the reports [0]

In the UK it was traditionally common to keep a car log book where you recorded all maintenance and might get the garage to put their stamp on it, to prove to a future buyer that you'd looked after the car. But having a garage enter that info into some random company's database, and maybe not telling me, would be disappointing.

[0] https://www.toyotanation.com/threads/oil-change-history-when...

There's also things that are private, but not necessarily deeply secret. There's also things that are completely legal, but morally questionable, at least in your social circles, and if that information was to leak out it would be harmful.

With the VW data leak I was pretty horrified that VW either doesn't understand or don't care that leaking location data isn't just privacy invading, it's potentially dangerous for victims of stalking and abuse. In the mildest cases these people may need to move, in the worst they die.

Car companies seem completely oblivious to the dangers of collecting driving data.

Every new car has a SIM card. Apparently in Europe used for emergency automatic calls. But having SIM card in the car is not mandatory. All the information in other cases is saved in the car. And when you bring the car to the dealership the information is transferred over the wire in old fashioned way. Safest thing is to have an older car without much electronics, that can be repaired outside dealership network. Some cars like a Teslas have very normal cameras filming interior. Apparently to monitor the driver. But who knows.