Honda is paying a $632,500 fine and changing its business practices to resolve privacy violations of Californians.
The carmaker required Californians to verify themselves and provide "excessive personal information," didn't give people the options to make privacy choices, shared personal information with advertisers without customer contracts and made it difficult for people to authorize other individuals or organizations to exercise their privacy rights, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) said Wednesday.
As part of the agreement, the CPPA said Honda will create a simpler process and user design for Californians to assert their privacy rights, certify compliance, train employees and change its contracting process to ensure they protect personal information.
"We won’t hesitate to use our cease-and-desist authority to change business practices, and we’ll tally fines based on the number of violations," said Michael Macko, head of the CPPA's enforcement division, in a statement.