Carmakers continue to auction diver data, a practice that U.S. leaders believe should be stopped.
On July 26, Senators Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Edward J. Markey (Massachusetts) wrote to FTC Chair Lina S. Khan, requesting that the regulatory leader look into the continued practice of car manufacturers collecting and then selling their customers’ driving data, which includes information such as the exact time, distance, speed, and braking behavior of each auto trip. This information is subsequently provided to insurance firms.
“Companies should not sell American data without their consent, period. However, it is particularly demeaning for automakers to sell cars for tens of thousands of dollars and then squeeze out a few extra pennies of profit from consumers’ private data,” the senators wrote.
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The letter explicitly mentions General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai, as well as their relationship with data broker Verisk Analytics. It accuses Verisk of functioning as a credit agency for drivers, and that corporations made false assurances to clients that data collection would cut their insurance premiums. It also discusses the usage of “dark patterns” in opt-in systems.
In March, the New York Times investigated an obscured practice in which carmakers handed over their customers’ driving data to data brokers such as Verisk and LexisNexis, which was then harvested to create individual risk scores for insurance providers, resulting in sky-high insurance quotes for many drivers. Unlike opt-in insurance monitoring, manufacturers collected data from internet-connected vehicles without notification. Carmakers provided minimal transparency about the practice, despite some, such as Ford Motors, applying patents for the technological practice of “collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles” using advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
At the time, General Motors announced the conclusion of its relationship with LexisNexis, and Verisk announced the closure of a program that “scored drivers on their safe driving habits using data from internet-connected cars,” but recent investigations reveal the practice is still ongoing.
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