# Your car is selling your data

> Automakers are quietly logging how you drive and selling it, and Washington's fixes miss the point.
- Title: Your car is selling your data · The Verge | Shortify
- Summary: Automakers are quietly logging how you drive and selling it, and Washington's fixes miss the point. Access and deletion rights don't help much when the real…
- Keywords: privacy, cars, data brokers, regulation, insurance, technology, culture, car, selling, data, The Verge
- Source: The Verge — https://theverge.com/column/994172/your-car-is-selling-your-data
- Author: Andrew Hawkins
- Published: 2026-09-13T12:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: privacy, cars, data brokers, regulation, insurance, technology, culture
## The FTC drew a line
Earlier this year the FTC hit General Motors with a five-year ban on selling customer data to consumer reporting agencies and third-party brokers. It was an unprecedented penalty.
## What GM was collecting
For years GM logged how often drivers sped and whether they drove at night, then sold it to brokers who build risk profiles for insurers.
## Consent nobody noticed
Most drivers had no idea. They agreed by signing up for an OnStar connected services plan, which switched on a feature called Smart Driver.
## Rates went up
GM passed the data to LexisNexis and Verisk, both insurance industry brokers. A 2024 New York Times investigation found drivers whose premiums rose because of it.

> some drivers said their insurance rates went up as a result of the data collection
## Every automaker, not one
Mozilla Foundation researchers read the privacy policies of every major car company in 2023. All of them failed.

> Every single one had "horrible privacy and security"
## Four policies, one car
Buyers accept overlapping terms for the vehicle, the connected services, the phone app, and the loan financing. Every one of them collects something.

> And so it was really overwhelming trying to understand what was going on
## Worse than your phone
On a phone you can find the privacy settings and change them. In a car the collection is scattered across systems and documents, so almost nobody can tell what is happening.
## A bill that misses
House Republicans introduced the DRIVER Act, arguing that if you own the vehicle you own its data. It also lets automakers keep collecting and selling to brokers.

> if you own the vehicle, you should own the data it generates
## Deletion is not prevention
Privacy advocates want less collected up front. Access and deletion rights just hand the driver a long, tedious chase after data that should never have been taken.
## The Freedom Car
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pitched a right to drive disconnected, banning mandates for self-driving systems or wireless data. Nobody was proposing such mandates.
## Money keeps it going
Buyers want simpler cars, no tracking, no ads on the dashboard. Automakers won't stop while the data economy keeps paying them to collect.

> there's little reason for automakers to voluntarily abandon the practice
## Key takeaway

Access and deletion rights don't help much when the real problem is how much your car collects in the first place.