The battle over driver data continues, this time in a Texas federal courthouse, where a consumer is suing Toyota, claiming the automaker sold his driving data to third-party companies. This case is similar to complaints against GM and Honda earlier this year for doing the same, but with a few interesting wrinkles, including that the customer says he opted out of data sharing at some point.
I think last year’s Onstar drama is when most consumers became aware that, not only were car companies tracking your driving data, but also sharing that data with third-party firms who might then sell that data to insurance companies. Just this week, GM and LexisNexis claimed in filings related to lawsuits over that revelation that your public driving behavior isn’t something you can claim private ownership of because it’s, well, public.
This case involves a man named Philip Siefke, a Florida resident and RAV4 owner, who found out his data was being tracked after calling Progressive Insurance for a quote. Siefke alleges that he told Progressive he didn’t want his data track, only to discover that the insurer already had access to his driving behavior via Toyota. Here’s how Law360 describes the suit:
Siefke alleged that Toyota, through a tracking device installed in its vehicles, was collecting “vast amounts of information including their location, speed and driving habits — even minute details such as acceleration, deceleration and ‘cornering’ events — as well as images and sounds captured by their vehicles, and sharing it for profit to third parties.”
The alleged data sharing scheme has deprived him and other drivers of “informational autonomy, invading their privacy and appropriating the economic value of this information,” he said.
Siefke seeks to represent a nationwide class of individuals who owned or leased a model year 2018 or newer Toyota vehicle equipped with tracking technology.
Siefke’s attorneys argue that Toyota, by selling this information, is robbing consumers of the ability to profit from it themselves. The full lawsuit has some other fun nuggets, including the claim that this data collection violates the Federal Wiretap Act.
More curious to me is the claim by Siefke that he spoke to a Toyota customer service representative (CSR) who tried to get him to confirm that he was signed up for data sharing via Toyota’s mobile phone app, only to discover that he allegedly was not. Here’s how that interaction is described in the lawsuit:
The Toyota CSR also advised Plaintiff to check his Toyota mobile phone application to verify whether he was indeed participating in Toyota’s telemetry data sharing scheme. Upon checking the Toyota application on his mobile phone, Plaintiff had been opted out of Toyota’s data sharing scheme, contrary to the Toyota CSR’s representation that Plaintiff signed up for the data sharing scheme
Accordingly, in violation of state and federal law and of its own Data Sharing Policies, Toyota had been sharing Plaintiff’s Driving Data with third parties without his consent
We’ve written about how you can opt out of vehicle data sharing before, though my assumption is that most consumers do not do this. If this class action lawsuit goes forward, it might reveal the degree to which Toyota is able to successfully respond to those requests. Even if consumers don’t opt out, the lawsuit argues that Toyota doesn’t make it clear to customers that they’re tacitly opting in every time they buy or lease a new car from the automaker.
So far, Toyota doesn’t seem to have responded publicly to the allegations.
If the current administration really wanted to hurt the tech companies they complain about they would pass a sweeping privacy bill like the EU but they are paid too much by their corpo overlords to do it, hence hypocrisy.
Toyota owner here.
Searching for Jackie Chiles number now.
If your car’s not a Fit, you must acquit.
Welllllll that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
You don’t deserve privacy!!!
Another aspect I dont hear discussed much is how well this data is protected from hackers or bad actors. Selling it off is bad but not keeping the data secure is just as bad. I’ve heard it mentioned that Toyota app users can track the previous owners location if the old owner didnt wipe their app.
Anyone with a 2nd gen GR86 or BRZ can get the DCM delete (data collection module) from Gerald Just Projects.
I hate this as much as the next driver, but I can’t imagine people don’t known it’s happening. I have a 24 Toyota and opted out of all data transferring sharing that I can and I fully expect that Toyota is still collecting. Also I assume any data I have on my phone is captured by the manufacturer as soon as it syncs up to the radio.
I don’t care how much they want this data or how valuable it is to insurance companies, it is an invasion of privacy. This type of granular data acquisition amounts to a Surveillance State. The excuse that driving on public roads voids any privacy concerns falls squarely under the ad absurdum fallacy. Think about it this way, if our roads were setup with systems that tracked every single thing every vehicle did on every single inch of public road (and private property too), right down to the amount of braking force applied, we’d all go nuts. This is no different.
Now notice I mentioned the private property thing. If you were to do a Shed Skid, on your own property, that gets reported to your insurance company as an extended WOT event and you’ll get non-renewed or a rate increase. Well there goes the public road escape clause because it happened on private property and no one was endangered.
There are no valid reasons that outweigh the privacy invasion concerns. Period.
Often the data is also wrong. I have a car with a low HP tiny engine and I constantly get tagged with high acceleration events simply because it takes a lot of throttle to participate in traffic. I get tagged for not wearing my seatbelt, but I NEVER drive without my seatbelt. I do sit at my kids school parked for 20 minutes everyday with the AC or heat on. I take my seatbelt off so I can more comfortably use my laptop. I guess that counts as not wearing my seat belt. At a MIMIMUM there should be standards on the collected data. It is pointless to collect and compare data without metrics and it should be flat out illegal. I’m not a lawyer but it seems to me that if someone makes a false claim about you that results in financial and/or reputational harm, you should have some rights to fight back. I leave my data on now, so they can collect it and make absurd claims. Someday they may need to defend those claims and their “metrics” in court…and that will be pretty embarrassing. I hope when these companies realize how worthless this data really is compared with the liability they are accumulating by collecting it, they will just stop.
Once again, an old car that can’t do this nonsense is the answer.
You asked for it, we got it, Toyota.
I just thought of a subscription I would pay for: “invisible to the insurance company”
(not that I should have to, of course)
Posting only to share that I’ve had a modest tv crush on Flo from Progressive since her introduction.
Not so much as back when she first started, but yeah!
Well, perhaps she’s an acquired taste to some.
Oh, I’ve always liked her but I guess my tastes have changed a bit since then. But I’m still in agreement with ya!
Well, she’s certainly no Milana Vayntrub from the ATT commercials, but then again, who is? 😉
I would also question the dealers involvement. And I bet that will be Toyotas legal defense. The sales people will often “help” people set up infotainment and have no idea what they are doing. They click though the eula and Toyota says oh we are good. There needs to be opt in vs opt out.
I’d like to know, in what situation, someone would opt into “Toyota selling my driving data to the highest bidder for their own enrichment”. Like, who the hell wants that?
So it doesn’t shock me that Toyota probably went the route of pretending their customers had the ability to opt out, when they had absolutely not intent to honor those wishes.
People opt-in to all sorts of dumb things now. Download this app for free drink or opt in for text messages for 10% off. They never read the small print. They could give you a free oil change or car wash or something and people would do it.
A lot of Corvette owner forums have tons of posts about how the first thing you should do, is pull the OnStar fuse, and where it’s located.
This is going to be more commonplace. People will learn to “Turn off” the communications on their cars, so stop data gathering. And if, the manufacturers try to stop it by tying the system to other needed ones, to stop a simple fuse pull, I bet there will be 3rd parties popping up with custom parts, ODB2 adapters, etc designed just to beat these data mining systems.
And, no if no one else does it, I sure as hell will figure it out.
True – for the smattering of folks who care.
But for the general car-buying public, no way.
These practices by automakers are super gross.
Are you talking about the C8? My dad plans to buy one soon and needless to say we *really* don’t want the insurance company to see the way he drives it… lol.
It’s a bit more complex for the C8, but there’s a way. Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfJoU1SGt3s
I understand that data-sharing is creepy and wrong, but why are you dragging FLO into this? FLO? I mean, that shifty-ass Geico gecko is right there. You know he’s up to some shenanigans.
How about the Cavemen? You think those Australopithecines just paid for their higher ed by selling rocks and mowing lawns? Nope, personal data.
Yeah that gecko is sketch.
And Chaos is all over that too.
But Flo definitely is up to something behind that cloyingly cheerful exterior.
She’s in the know.
Correct, nobody smiles like that unless they know their evil plan is going off without a hitch. Flo gives me big “Too late now, you stupid sheep!” vibes with that all-teeth grin.
DATA SHAVE!
Flo just sent my 6 month renewal offer.
She announced on the front of the envelope that she was gonna lower my rate, and save me 2 bucks every 6 months.
I wish it was possible to tell Flo what to do with her damn 2 bucks.
And when we sold our other car, Flo was generous enough to to credit us 40 cents for dropping full coverage, and the car.
Screw Flo…