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An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission determined that consumers had not been aware that the automaker was providing their driving information to data brokers.
On the Kashmiri Hill
The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with General Motors that would ban the automaker from providing drivers’ behavior and geolocation data to consumer reporting agencies. The ban will last for five years.
The New York Times reported last year that G. M. It collects knowledge about people’s driving habits, adding the frequency at which they accelerated or led at night, and sold it to knowledge brokers who generated risk profiles for insurance companies. Some drivers have indicated that their auto insurance rates had higher as a result.
“G. M. Monitoring and sold the exact geolocation knowledge of other folks and data on the habit of drivers, infrequently as as each and each 3 seconds, “said Lina M. Khan, president of the F. T. C. “With this action, the F. T. C. Prés the privacy of Americans and protects other folks from out of control surveillance. »»
The F. T. C. opened an investigation and decided that G. M. It had collected and sold knowledge to millions of cars “without properly notifying consumers and obtaining their affirmative consent. “Drivers who have signed up to Osstar connected the facility and turned on a capability called Motive Force Wise were the subject of knowledge gathering. But federal regulators said the registration procedure was so confusing that many consumers didn’t realize they had signed up for it.
“G. M. obviously did not disclose to customers the types of data he collected through his sage motive force feature, adding that his geolocation and driving habit knowledge would be sold, such as each and every example of hard braking, driving, and night speed. to the client’s reporting agencies,” F. T. C. Said in a statement. These client reporting agencies used sensitive G. M. provided to compile customer credit reports, which have been used through insurance corporations to deny insurance and set rates.
In a statement, G. M. He said that the knowledge collection program was over “due to the feedback of visitors. ” The company said that consumers can see and eliminate their non -public form of momentation on their website.
In the weeks following the Times investigation, G. M. stopped sharing motive force data with two knowledge brokers, Lexisnexis Risk Solutions and Verisk, which has worked with the insurance industry. The five-year ban prohibits G. M. De from sharing data about individual motivating forces, yet it has worked it out. You can still percentage of unnamed knowledge about people’s driving with third parties, such as road safety investigators.
Mrs. Khan, who monitored the compilation of corporate knowledge and the technology industry her time at the head of the F. T. C. , will be replaced as president when the Trump administration takes over next week.
Under the settlement agreement, G.M. must make it easier for drivers to turn off tracking of their vehicle’s location, and make it possible for them to gain access to and delete the data the automaker has collected about their driving.
The Kashmir Hill writes about the generation and how it adjusts the lives of people with a special concentrate in privacy. He has been covering the generation for more than a decade. Get more information about Kashmir
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