Have you heard about Highway.com? This new company says it offers information about carriers, such as their trucking authority, their DOT number, proof of insurance, that sort of thing. Not a bad idea – we’ve all heard about fraudsters in the trucking industry. A single website sign-up? That makes sense.
The highway’s purpose is to assure shippers that their loads are safe and not at risk of theft or being held for ransom. They say they want to help brokers by providing accurate and up-to-date information about trucking companies.
Some of that data includes
https://highway.com/products
- instant visibility into a carrier’s verified fleet
- compares carrier equipment ages to peers
- location insights – find a carrier within a 5-minute walk of a broker
- operation insights – identify carriers with a low inspection-to-truck count
- catch a carrier using another carrier’s equipment.
So how is Highway.com doing it?
Highway.com’s stated purpose is to verify carriers’ identities. Trucking companies and independent owner operators sign up with Highway.com to gain access to certain loads. Some brokers say they won’t work with a trucking company unless it has signed up with Highway.com.
Most truckers don’t see a problem with this. They go online and sign up. The onboarding process looks simple enough.
Until they get to this one point.
They want access to your ELD data. You’re asked to submit your ELD access information, including your password. Which will give them 100% access to your ELD data all the time.
Not even the DOT gets your ELD data all the time.
The DOT doesn’t even have access unless they request an inspection file. Then they only get the inspection file. They do not have full unlimited access.
Highway.com requests access to your ELD. That has nothing to do with identity. Once they access the ELD they have full access all the time to all of your ELD data.
Are you comfortable with that?
Are they taking the data from your ELD and making it available to brokers?
- What if they start telling brokers or insurance companies that your company is unsafe because the ELD reports that you’ve been speeding, even if you never received a ticket? (They can get that information from your ELD.)
- What if they tell the broker that your check engine light is on?
- What about other driver behaviors like hard braking?
- What if this causes you to be disqualified for certain freight lanes without your knowledge? What if this data gets to your insurance company and they raise your rates or cancel your insurance completely? GM just discontinued doing exactly that recently.
What do you think? Is this necessary to do business or an unwanted intrusion?
Who owns your ELD data?
The US government requires that we have ELDs in our trucks. They have a list of ELDs that meet the requirements. Periodically, they will announce a product that isn’t compliant with the FMCSA standards. This is important.
The government doesn’t ask for your ID and password to access your ELD data.
Here’s the deal: Highway.com wants your data. All of it.
Some ELD companies collect this data. Some ELD companies sell this data.
TruckingOffice does not sell your data.
Your email and all other information about your company is safe with us.
Do you have a problem with a company compiling more data than the government does? How do you feel about a private company collecting and likely analyses of your data?
Data mining isn’t limited to Google tracking your cookies anymore. Highway.com’s website says that they don’t sell data. In their Privacy Policy, they say
We may use aggregated (anonymized) information about our End Users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.
https://highway.com/privacy-policy
Just because it doesn’t identify you… does that make it okay? We all know that companies change their policies. What if Highway.com changes theirs?
These are just some things we’re thinking about. What do you think about Highway.com?
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