This December an updated OnStar privacy policy will take affect that changes the way the company can share data collected from your vehicle with more people. An additional clause in the updated policy opens up the possibility of a sale of business operations, which has been a rumor about OnStar for quite some time.
The new clause in the privacy policy (pdf) addressing the possibility of a sale of business operations states, “There may be instances where we sell some or all of our business operations. To the extent that the business operation that is sold relates to the equipment, service or data connection, we may transfer your information as part of the transferred assets."
So, in short if the business operations division gets sold your vehicle data will transfer with it. CNET talked with a GM representative who explained this type of clause is often used saying, “it's standard legal language they have to put in the unlikely event that they sell of services or merge with another company." The rumor that OnStar was seeking suitors has been hanging around for a while and this added clause reignites those rumors making it feel like the company is getting ready to be purchased.
The bigger issue in this privacy policy is what OnStar is doing with your vehicle data. Just so you are aware that data includes: anonymous aspects of vehicle location, speed, safety belt usage, credit card information, amongst some other things. So if you accept the new policy third-parties (mostly marketers), "with whom OnStar contracts with to conduct joint marketing initiatives," will get access to all of that data. For reference in 2010 the privacy policy read, “In general, we do not share your personal information with third-party marketers, unless we have asked for and obtained your explicit consent."
This seems like a tricky change to make. On one hand it seems dirty because insurance agencies could potentially get access to information like how often you exceed the speed limit (even if you are not caught), and when you wear your seat belt. On the other hand some of the driving data could be shared with legitimate research institutions that could use that information to improve the safety of vehicles or study emergency response in cases of severe accidents.
A GM representative addressed the idea of sharing data with research institutions telling CNET, “We're in a pilot program with University of Michigan to use OnStar vehicle data to predict the injury severity in crashes, which is sent to emergency responders."
The really interesting thing about all of this relates to recent reports that OnStar tracks vehicle information even when the service is not actively enabled by the owner. That means if you cancel your OnStar service or never activate it, your vehicle data is still being recorded and shared with third parties.
There are ways around that problem. First option is to call OnStar ((877) 616-0577) and request a hard disconnect on your OnStar service. Jonathan Zdziarski addressed this idea in a blog post about the new privacy policy, "It takes up to 10 days to have the account fully cancel, and another 14 days for the data connection to be shut down."
The second option, which is instantaneous, is to find the fuse associated with OnStar on your vehicle and pull that fuse. This achieves a hard disconnect of OnStar without any troublesome phone calls or wait time. That fuse is usually identified in the relevant section of your vehicle’s owner’s manual.
Do you care that OnStar is farming out your vehicle information to third-party marketers and research organizations? Do you even use OnStar? Let us know how you feel about the service and the new data sharing in the comments.
