The battle over who owns and controls your driving data is being fought in court. General Motors is facing a multi-district lawsuit that claims the Detroit-based automaker allegedly violated its customers’s privacy by collecting and selling their driving information without proper consent. However, GM is arguing it did not violate their privacy because “driving a vehicle—which necessarily involves conduct that takes place on public roads—cannot form the basis for any privacy-based claim.”
According to GM’s filing to dismiss the case, “states do not permit invasion of privacy claims that are based on public conduct,” even though specific state laws vary regarding invasion of privacy claims. In Georgia, where this case is filed, observing someone “in a public place is not an intrusion upon one’s privacy.”
Also, many states follow the Restatement of Torts, which says that observing a person’s public conduct, even on a “public highway,” cannot constitute a violation of that person’s policy because their “conduct is public and open to the public eye.”
For example: if someone films you publicly breaking the law in a car, it can be used against you in court.
As GM notes, “Driving data includes vehicle location, driving routes, braking events, and speed, all of which occur on “public thoroughfares,”” citing a 2015 case where a court determined that someone being surveilled by drone did not have their privacy violated because the surveillance occurred in a public place.
While the plaintiffs claim in their filing that they had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding their driving behavior, GM states “roadways are public, and these behaviors are observed by all.”
LexisNexis and Verisk, which purchased driving data from GM and are also defendants, made a similar claim in its request to dismiss the case. “Plaintiffs allege that Driving Data was collected from their vehicles as they drove on public roadways,” the two said in its filing. “Courts consistently hold there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in driving activity on public roads.”
This is just one argument the defendants are using in their effort to dismiss the case. The plaintiffs also allege the automaker violated the Federal Wiretap Act, the Stored Communications Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which GM and OnStar counter in their 111-page filing. GM discontinued its Smart Driver program in April 2024, which was collecting driver data.
GM isn’t wrong to say that public conduct is observable by all, but today’s level of surveillance leaves little room for people to hide. I remember being repeatedly told in driver’s education that driving was a privilege, not a right, and that a state could revoke a license as quickly as it issued it if you broke the law.
That often meant a police officer had to catch you breaking the law and issue you a ticket, which you could challenge in court in hopes of reducing it to a lesser offense. Now, your car can log every infraction you commit, intentional or not, and transmit that data to an automaker that could then sell it to your insurance company, potentially raising your rates, with no citation needed or ability to plead down to a lesser charge.
If all this data is being collected, sold, and used against you, what’s the point of driving at all?
#Argues #Sell #Data #Drive #Public #Roads
