U.S. Congress Again Urges for Action on Vehicle Data Usage from FTC

U.S. Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon have sent a letter urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how automakers are collecting and using vehicle data, reports The New York Times.

The letter referenced a previous report from the Times which showed automakers were collecting data on how vehicle owners drove, such as sudden braking or acceleration or driving over the speed limit. That information was then shared with insurance companies. 

This is the most recent of other letters that have been sent from Congress to FTC calling for action on vehicle data usage. 

General Motors, Hyundai, and Honda are the predominant focus of Markey and Wyden’s letter, which had been selling information to an analytics company called Verisk, which in turn handed the data over to insurance providers.

The senators’ letter added that the fact the companies were making only a few extra cents per vehicle in exchange for the data, with Honda receiving 26 cents per vehicle over four years, and 61 cents per vehicle for Hyundai over six years. GM would not disclose how much it had been paid by Verisk for the data.

“It is particularly insulting for automakers that are selling cars for tens of thousands of dollars to then squeeze out a few additional pennies of profit with consumers’ private data,” the letter stated.

Though the automakers’ arrangement with Verisk ended after news of it broke in March, GM told Senator Wyden that it is still sharing anonymous information on vehicles’ locations with a company it declined to identify, adding that the only way to not participate was to completely disable a vehicle’s internet connection.

In addition, though GM said its relationship ended with Verisk earlier this year, a Times reporter who previously broke news on GM's usage of driver data soon discovered her own data being collected by the company.