Toyota Driving Data Lawsuit Accuses Car Maker of Unlawfully Selling Customers’ Personal Information to Insurance Companies

Tracking devices in Toyota cars have been used for years to gather customer driving data for sale to insurance companies, lawsuit alleges.

A Florida man has filed a class action lawsuit against Toyota, claiming the auto maker shared his vehicle’s driving data with the Progressive insurance company, despite never having received any authorization from him to do so.

The complaint (PDF) was brought by Philip Siefke in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas last month, naming Toyota Motor North America, Inc., Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, and Connected Analytic Services as defendants.

A growing number of driving data lawsuits have been filed in recent months, following allegations of automakers and insurance companies colluding to raise drivers’ insurance rates through the illegal collection and sale of their personal driving data.

In one of the latest claims to be filed, Siefke indicates that he purchased a Toyota Rav4 XLE in March 2021, which was equipped with “telemetry” tracking technology.

Telemetry technology uses electronic sensors and devices to remotely collect and monitor data, which will then be sent to a central location for analysis.

According to his own records of the purchase agreement, Siefke claims that he opted out of his vehicle’s telemetry tracking system. However, when he applied for insurance with Progressive in January 2025, the insurance company indicated that they already had access to Siefke’s driving data, despite Siefke having opted out of Progressive’s Snapshot data sharing program as well.

Siefke was later notified by Progressive that the company had obtained his driving data through the Toyota telemetry system installed in his car. In opposition to Siefke’s own records, a Toyota representative told him that he had signed up for the tracking technology program when he purchased his vehicle, the lawsuit claims.

Progressive later told Siefke that his data was obtained through the third-party data reporting agency and aggregator Connected Analytic Services (CAS), Siefke indicates.

“Despite CAS’s ‘unwavering commitment’ to customer privacy and representation that it does not share Driving Data without explicit vehicle owner consent, it does so, nonetheless, because it shared Plaintiff’s Driving Data illegally shared by Toyota,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiff never provided consent to Defendants Toyota nor CAS to share the Driving Data collected from his Toyota vehicle with third parties.”

Siefke’s complaint raises allegations against all defendants for violating the Federal Wiretap Act and invading his privacy, while asserting additional claims against Toyota for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, breaching express and implied contracts, and unjust enrichment.

He is seeking class action status for his complaint, along with an order to stop the defendants from collecting vehicle data from him and other class members. Siefke also requests a mandatory injunction requiring the deletion of all previously collected driving data, and is pursuing actual, nominal, consequential and punitive damages. 

Illegal Driving Data Collection Lawsuits 

Toyota and Progressive are among several companies recently named in lawsuits over the alleged illegal collection of individuals’ driving data.

Last month, more than a dozen Allstate driving data collection lawsuits were consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois, alleging the insurer paid millions to app developers to embed tracking code in a variety of mobile applications, including non-driving apps like Life360 and SiriusXM. The embedded code allegedly captured detailed driving data such as users’ location, speed and motion patterns, which was then used to analyze driving behavior and influence insurance rates.

General Motors is another manufacturer facing a series of GM OnStar lawsuits, over the company’s admission last spring that GM had been using its OnStar service to collect driver data and share it with third-party data analytics companies, including LexisNexis and Verisk Analytics.

Individuals pursuing individual arbitration claims or participating in GM OnStar class action lawsuits are seeking various forms of compensation and legal remedies, due to the company’s alleged improper data collection practices.