Big Auto Pushes to Criminalize Looking at Your Own Driving History

Federal Crimes for Reading Error Codes

Your car knows where you went last Tuesday, how hard you hit the brakes, and whether you were speeding at 2 a.m.

It sends that information back to the manufacturer, sometimes every three seconds. Now, the auto industry wants to make sure you never see that data yourself.

Carmakers are pushing to treat anyone who bypasses vehicle software locks as a federal criminal, with penalties of three to five years in prison.

The fight over who owns your driving history is heating up, and the stakes go way beyond oil changes.

GM Sold Driver Data Without Asking

In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission banned General Motors from sharing driver data with consumer reporting agencies for five years.

The FTC alleged that GM collected, used, and sold precise geolocation data and driving behavior information from millions of vehicles without adequately notifying consumers and obtaining their consent.

The geolocation data GM sold consisted of latitude and longitude points which could reveal location to within approximately 4.5 inches.

The company had been passing this information to data brokers who then sold it to insurance companies, and many drivers had no idea until their premiums jumped.

Insurance Rates Spiked Overnight

GM sold sensitive location and driving behavior data which led consumers to lose car insurance, have their insurance premiums unexpectedly spike, and reveal the precise locations they drove to, including places of worship and health care facilities.

Drivers who signed up for OnStar and its Smart Driver feature thought they were getting safety tools.

The FTC alleged that GM’s enrollment process for data collection was confusing and misleading, and that GM failed to clearly disclose that driving behavior data like every instance of hard braking, late night driving, and speeding would be sold to consumer reporting agencies.

Your Car Watches Everything You Do

While driving to a new restaurant, your car’s satellite navigation system tracks your location. Onboard cameras constantly track your face and eye movements.

When another car veers into your path, forcing you to slam on the brakes, sensors are assisting and recording.

The Mozilla Foundation analyzed privacy practices at 25 auto brands and declared that cars were the worst product category the group had ever reviewed for privacy.

By 2025, over 80% of newly manufactured cars are categorized as connected vehicles, featuring constant connectivity capabilities.

A Piracy Law Now Covers Cars

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was written in the late 1990s to fight online piracy, not to control who can fix a car, a tractor, or a medical device.

But automakers are now using its anti-circumvention rules to argue that bypassing any digital lock on a vehicle should be illegal.

Criminal penalties under the DMCA are reserved for willful violations, and a first-time criminal offense is punishable by a fine of up to $500,000 or imprisonment for up to five years.

Right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann has warned that reading your own diagnostic data could put you in federal prison.

Cars Are Now Protected Computers

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act prohibits intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or in excess of authorization, and because modern vehicles qualify as protected computers under federal law, connecting to a car’s internal network or pulling diagnostic data can be portrayed as hacking.

Even first-time offenses for accessing a protected computer without sufficient authorization can be punishable by up to five years in prison, and ten years for repeat offenses, plus fines.

The law never defines what unauthorized means, leaving interpretation to prosecutors.

Massachusetts Voters Demanded Data Access

Massachusetts voters passed a ballot measure in November 2020 requiring automakers that sell vehicles with telematics systems to equip them with a standardized open data platform.

The measure passed overwhelmingly, with voters shrugging off dire warnings from auto manufacturers who spent tens of millions of dollars in opposition.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of Right to Repair supporters with 75 percent to 25 percent. The law was supposed to give independent repair shops access to the same wireless diagnostic data that dealers get.

Automakers Sued to Block the Law

The automakers filed a lawsuit to overturn the voter-approved law, and the case went to trial in the summer of 2021. They argued the measure created cybersecurity risks and that the timeline was impossible to meet.

A verdict was delayed seven times, until a newly appointed judge was assigned to the case in early 2025, dismissing the case and cementing the victory for drivers.

For nearly five years, the industry tied up a law that 75% of voters had approved.

Carmakers Decide What You Need to Know

Automakers say they will share specific telematics data to the extent it is needed to complete a repair, but the core problem is who decides what is needed.

The answer is the automakers themselves, the very entities who profit when repairs are funneled back to franchised dealers.

Independent mechanics often need historical data to diagnose intermittent problems, but that information stays locked on manufacturer servers.

Without usable diagnostic data, drivers are more likely to hear that the whole module needs to be swapped for $1,000 instead of replacing the actual failed component.

Nobody Knows Who Owns Driving Data

Courts and regulators have not fully resolved who actually owns the data that a car generates.

Automakers often behave as if they hold full rights over every byte, from GPS traces to camera feeds, while drivers assume that information about their own movements belongs to them.

As we enter 2026, regulatory frameworks are scrambling to catch up. In the U.S., the absence of comprehensive federal privacy laws leaves a patchwork of state rules, allowing data sharing with minimal oversight.

Until Congress acts, the question stays unanswered.

Privacy Groups Are Fighting Back

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says all carmakers should be forced to protect their customers’ privacy, and they should have to do so for longer than just five years.

The best way to ensure that would be through comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation with strong data minimization rules and requirements for clear, opt-in consent.

Louis Rossmann’s Repair Preservation Group has raised over $790,000 to fund right-to-repair ballot initiatives.

The battle has moved from repair shops to state legislatures.

The Data Trail Is Only Getting Longer

Car companies often share and sometimes sell the data they collect to third-party businesses, including service providers, data brokers, and other companies.

As vehicles advance toward full autonomy, the surveillance potential intensifies.

Self-driving cars, reliant on vast sensor arrays, collect environmental data that includes pedestrians and other vehicles.

Every new feature adds another data point, and every data point is something a manufacturer can monetize or lock away.

The car you paid for is watching, recording, and reporting back. The only question left is whether you have any right to know what it knows.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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