General Motors accused of stealing car owners’ personal data

A court in Texas has received an action filed against General Motors Corporation with charges of unlawful sale of car telemetry data to third parties.

In particular, the claimants state that the data ended up in a number of insurance companies. The Prosecutor General of the State of Texas believes that in doing so, General Motors blatantly violated the privacy of over 1.8 million residents of the state.

Aside from disclosing sensitive data to third parties, the automaker has allegedly also made insurance rates worse for hundreds of thousands of people. The insurers could analyze the telemetry to expose the driving habits of car owners and slam them with higher rates if dangerous driving was detected. Granted, it may make sense from a business perspective, but spying on clients never wins you more clients.