General Motors (GM.US) has been fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for selling user data without consent. As a result, the company is prohibited from sharing data for the next five years.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that General Motors (GM.US) and its subsidiary OnStar have been fined for selling user location and driving behavior data without user consent, including a five-year ban on disclosing user data to consumer reporting agencies. It was reported that earlier media investigations found that General Motors has been secretly collecting data on its customers' driving habits, such as foot patterns and routes, and selling them to insurance companies and third-party data brokers such as LexisNexis and Verisk. This led to many customers' insurance premiums unexpectedly increasing without realizing that their driving habits were being monitored and shared. FTC Chairman Lina M. Khan stated: "General Motors monitored and sold precise location data and driving behavior information about people sometimes as often as every three seconds." "Through this action, the FTC is protecting Americans' privacy and protecting people from unbridled surveillance." In addition, the settlement agreement requires General Motors to obtain customer consent before collecting their driving behavior data and allows customers to limit or delete their data based on their wishes.