General Motors agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California investigation into allegations that it sold detailed information about the driving habits of hundreds of thousands of state residents to two data brokers, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
Driving data reached insurance companies
General Motors, headquartered in Detroit, owns brands including Chevrolet and Cadillac. Concerns have also spread to Australia, where authorities are investigating the amount of data collected by Toyota and Hyundai vehicles following an investigation by consumer rights group Choice covering about 10 car brands.
The investigation found that Hyundai collects users’ voiceprints and shares them with third parties, while Toyota collects data on driving, brake use and speed and also shares it with other parties. The data modern cars can collect is not limited to driving behavior; it may also include a user’s weight, voice tone, age, race and facial expressions captured by interior cameras.
Cars collect data beyond driving behavior
A car can also access additional information from a phone when it is connected to the vehicle’s systems. These practices are particularly concerning because privacy options in cars are less clear than those in phones and apps, while the data is linked to users’ daily movements. Collection is expected to expand as more sensors and cameras are added to vehicles.
A digital privacy study indicates that disabling data collection may cause some safety features and services to stop working. Examples cited include the impact on over-the-air updates in Tesla vehicles and automatic crash reporting in Kia vehicles when data-collection mechanisms are disabled.
