Cars are harvesting driver data and selling it to third-party brokers

Earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission imposed a five-year ban on General Motors selling customer data after a report showed that speed and night-driving metrics were being sold to LexisNexis and Verisk for insurance risk profiling, leading some drivers to see higher premiums. The settlement also requires GM to simplify opt-out mechanisms and allow data access and deletion. Independent studies by the Mozilla Foundation and Consumer Reports confirm that nearly all major U.S. automakers gather and distribute driver-behavior data through overlapping service agreements and dense legal language.

Legislative attempts such as the DRIVER Act aim to grant owners rights to access and delete data but stop short of prohibiting collection, while a “Freedom Car” proposal from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy advocates for vehicles without mandatory connectivity. The debate highlights a tension between consumer privacy demands and the lucrative data-selling model that automakers rely on.