
Safelite asks Maryland legislators to clarify who owns repair data, argues OEMs don’t allow access
By onLegal
The Maryland Senate Finance Committee held a briefing on consumer “right to repair” last week, hearing from both Safelite Group and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, that automotive repair businesses have access to OEM repair information.
A bill on the topic hasn’t been introduced in this legislative session. Related legislation introduced in 2023 didn’t make it out of committee.
Michael Moné, an attorney who spoke on behalf of Safelite, testified that the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act of 2024 prevents timely data access by non-OEM repair facilities if consumers have to be granted access by OEMs to complete repairs.
“[I]t may take a consumer up to 150 days from when they initially make the request to receive access to their personal data,” Moné said. “Although 150 days may be sufficient for obtaining personal data out of curiosity or a desire to archive historical information, in the context of obtaining vehicle or other device data, it is unacceptably long if the consumer needs access to their vehicle data to provide it to their authorized service technician in connection with a vehicle repair. Especially if that repair is urgent and failing to complete it may render the vehicle inoperable or unsafe.
“For example, driving with a chipped or cracked windshield may increase the risk of sudden catastrophic windshield failure that could not only result in harm to the vehicle occupants but also loss of control of the vehicle, potentially injuring the motorist, other motorists, and bystanders. Delaying this repair through the passage of time or by limiting who can make such a repair, creating a bottleneck, is a risk to public health and safety. Any arguments to the contrary to such position are in opposite to consumer well-being.”
Moné didn’t provide any examples of when a consumer request was needed for repairs to be completed or when the law delayed repairs.
According to Moné, Safelite paid a third-party provider more than $9 million last year on authentication and access fees for certain OEM diagnostic data.
“Because of Safelite’s scale, it can absorb these costs to lower the impact on each individual consumer but such fees could become prohibitively expensive,” he said. “In Safelite’s experience, these fees can be upwards of $100 per vehicle. Such costs may also prevent small repair shops from offering the services because they are not capable of absorbing those costs to remain competitive or cannot afford upfront setup fees, annual licensing, or purchasing specialized tools that may be required.
“[T]he true question is why should a consumer or their chosen authorized service provider be required to pay fees at all to access the consumer’s own data on the consumer’s own device?”
Tom Tucker, Safelite Group legislative affairs assistant vice president, added that Safelite began paying $25,000 per month last year for a scan tool to access data for repairs on certain Nissan and Infiniti models instead of sending the vehicles to a dealership or another repair shop.
The sentiment seemingly reinforced that access to necessary tools and repair information is available to the independent market.
“As Mr. Tucker so kindly put forward for me, automakers do provide all the information necessary to service and diagnose a vehicle and they have done that for many years,” Weikel responded. “I figured I would have to argue that point more but I appreciate his acknowledging that point.
“When it comes to providing consumers with a range of repair options, automakers are the gold standard. You can bring your car to a dealership, you can bring it to a national chain, you can bring it to an independent repairer, or if you’re technologically inclined, you can take on the repair yourself. That’s unlike any other consumer product out there. And it’s all because automakers make this information available.”
In response to Tucker sharing that a Safelite scan tool didn’t work on Nissan and Infiniti vehicles, Wayne Weikel, Alliance for Automotive Innovation vice president of state government affairs, noted that other third-party tool manufacturers’ products did work.
“How is that the automaker’s responsibility that they made a tool that didn’t necessarily work with the Nissan system? …Maybe Nissan and other companies aren’t doing it the way they want but there are other options in the marketplace, which is what they took advantage of,” he said.
“Automakers work with repairers in service to their shared customer. It is not an adversarial relationship. They understand that having a bad repair experience cuts into brand loyalty.”
A 2014 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between automakers and aftermarket distributor and manufacturer associations was referenced during testimony. Tucker said the MOU “is not strong enough and lacks enforcement authority.”
The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) was one of the signers of the MOU, and its name was later changed to the Auto Care Association in 2014. Before his role at Safelite, Tucker served as the senior director of state government relations for the Auto Care Association.
“It is also not legally binding and relies on automakers’ voluntary compliance,” he said. “In 2023, a new MOU was signed, not by a wide range of stakeholders, but rather by a small group of repairers aligned with the automakers. The automakers view the MOU as a positive development and so do we but its effectiveness really hinges on two things — the automakers’ commitments to the principles along with the industry and, more importantly, the future adoption of enforceable regulations to ensure its long-term success regulations.”
In response, Weikel said the 2023 agreement “applies to all diagnostic and repair information needed for vehicles.”
“It applies to telematics, telematics data. It applies to ICE vehicles as well as EVs and other new technologies. It applies to third-party tool manufacturers and also, most importantly, it creates a working group so that automakers and repairers can continue to work together in service to their shared customers.”
Tucker said Safelite began discussing “right to repair” with elected officials last year and was referred to the Finance Committee. He asked the committee to consider who owns vehicle data and requested a study be done to find the answer.
“Should the repair data be considered personal data and what connectivity is it between the right to repair initiative and the recently enacted data privacy laws? …We’re not asking to reopen or trash the data privacy law because we support it. We’re just wanting to know what is the nexus between the two.”
Documents from the briefing including written testimony can be accessed here.
Images
Featured image: Screenshot of Safelite Group representatives speaking at a Jan. 22, 2025 Maryland Senate Finance Committee briefing. (From left) Michael Moné, Christopher Allen, Tom Tucker, and Bryson Popham.