OnStar Begins Spying On Customers’ GPS Location For Profit

Searching_ _ _ · Sep 20, 2011

While most people, I imagine, would hit the delete button when receiving something as exciting as new terms and conditions, being the nerd sort, I decided to have a personal drooling session and read it instead. I’m glad I did. OnStar’s latest T&C has some very unsettling updates to it, which include the ability to sell your personal GPS location information, speed, safety belt usage, and other information to third parties, including law enforcement. To add insult to a slap in the face, the company insists they will continue collecting and selling this personal information even after you cancel your service, unless you specifically shut down the data connection to the vehicle after canceling.

As you scroll down the list of information collected, you see that once you get past important emergency services (what we pay OnStar for), OnStar now has given themselves the right to also use this information to stuff their pockets. OnStar has granted themselves the right to collect this information “for any purpose, at any time, provided that following collection of such location and speed information identifiable to your Vehicle, it is shared only on an anonymized basis.” – This provides carte blanche authority for OnStar to now track and collect information about your current GPS position and speed any time and anywhere, instead of only in the rare, limited circumstances the old contract outlined.
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OnStar Begins Spying On Customers’ GPS Location For Profit - Zdziarski's Domain

x942 · Sep 21, 2011

Searching_ _ _ said:

OnStar Begins Spying On Customers’ GPS Location For Profit - Zdziarski's Domain
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Scary. My friend had an OnStar enabled car and had the tech remove it recently because he was recently tracked by a PI (albeit illegally but that's another issue.). This is even worse.

J_L · Sep 24, 2011

They'll do pretty much anything for money.

ronjor · Sep 26, 2011

Three Senators condemn OnStar for tracking former customers

By Timothy B. Lee

Three Senators have raised concerns about an announcement by GM's OnStar's subsidiary that it would continue collecting data from customers' cars even after they cancelled their OnStar service. In a Wednesday letter to the company, Al Franken (D-MN) and Chris Coons (D-DE) warned that "OnStar's actions appear to violate basic principles of privacy and fairness."

On Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) raised objections of his own. He released a letter he has written to the Federal Trade Commission seeking an investigation of OnStar's privacy practices. Schumer described OnStar's new policy as "one of the most brazen invasions of privacy in recent memory."
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...demn-onstar-for-tracking-former-customers.ars

Noob · Sep 26, 2011

Now this is getting lame LOL

dw426 · Sep 26, 2011

Noob said:

Now this is getting lame LOL
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And yet time and time again, we hear "if it's providing a service, that's okay" and other nutty reasons. Too many people underestimate greed. Anyway, this is when you rip OnStar out of your car and tell the company to go jump in a very deep lake.

ronjor · Sep 27, 2011

GM’s OnStar Reverses Privacy Shift That Drew Senators’ Wrath

By Eric Engleman

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co.’s OnStar vehicle navigation service said it won’t collect data on the driving habits of customers who cancel their subscriptions, reversing a policy shift that drew protests from three U.S. senators.

OnStar told customers in an e-mail last week that it would continue collecting information from vehicles of subscribers who drop the service. Customers would have been required to contact OnStar to halt data collection under the policy change, which had been due to go into effect Dec. 1.

“We realize that our proposed amendments did not satisfy our subscribers,” OnStar President Linda Marshall said in a news release. “We listened, we responded and we hope to maintain the trust of our more than 6 million customers.”
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...s-privacy-shift-that-drew-senators-wrath.html

dw426 · Sep 27, 2011

Good to know. I wonder exactly what kind of a reaction they were expecting though when they thought this up?

J_L · Sep 27, 2011

Mindless, obedient sheep, I mean masses?

dw426 · Sep 27, 2011

J_L said:

Mindless, obedient sheep, I mean masses?
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You're probably spot on. I have to say, lately the pro privacy crowd has been winning a few more skirmishes. The war rages on, however.

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