Inside a franchise dealership’s computer systems sits a trove of records, and Michigan has drawn a line around who may reach it. The state’s answer is the Motor Vehicle Dealer Data Collection Act. Lawmakers numbered it Public Act 113 of 2026. It took effect October 9, the day it won the governor’s signature.
Three protected categories
A dealership’s systems hold data in three protected forms. Records about the dealer’s own business count, and so do customer information and vehicle diagnostic data. Most of that data lives inside a dealership management system.
No outside vendor can compel a dealer to hand over access, and neither can a manufacturer. Diagnostic data is where manufacturers keep a narrower path. Warranty claims and recall notices stay open to them, since what those require needs no consent.
Gaps in the statute
Vehicle diagnostic data does not become dealer property because of the act, nor do the use and sharing rights belong to dealers, beyond what warranty, repair, or service work needs. Data generated outside dealership systems also sits beyond the statute’s scope.
That gap lands on collision and repair shops. Telemetry from the vehicle itself, plus connected-car feeds that never touch a dealer’s software, stay outside the law’s reach.
Duties on the vendors
Vendors warehousing dealer data carry their own duties: open integration, a 90-day exit window once a dealer gives notice, and no withholding of access to collect payments no written contract agreed to.
The stakes
One platform, a dealership management system, concentrates purchase prices, financing terms, and customer identities together. Attackers hit that profile this month in Germany, where a single supplier flaw exposed buyer records at hundreds of Volkswagen Group retailers.
Michigan built a data-access boundary, not a security mandate, settling who may pull records and who may be refused.
