Your Truck, Your Data: Two Texas Bills Guard Driver Privacy

You bought the truck. Somebody else may still be watching where it goes. And the state may be handing out your name and address to people you never met.

Two bills filed today in Austin go after both problems. Both come from the same lawmaker. Both are short. Both are worth your time.

Plain-English summary

HB 1131 says a car dealer who sells you a vehicle with a GPS tracking device on it has to tell you out loud at the sale. If you ask, the dealer has to take it off. Free.

HB 1134 cuts the list of private businesses that can get your personal information out of Texas motor vehicle records. Marketers, data resellers, private investigators, consumer reporting agencies and researchers come off the list.

Both were filed November 12, 2026, by Rep. Virdell. Both would take effect September 1, 2027.

FACT: HB 1131 bill history and HB 1134 bill history show both filed 11/12/2026, author Virdell.

Why it matters

Out here a truck is not a toy. It is how you get to work, to church, to the feed store, to your kids' games.

Nobody should be tracked on a vehicle they paid for without knowing it.

And nobody should have their name and address sold off a government database just because they registered a car. You did not volunteer that information. The law made you hand it over.

DOCUMENTED INFERENCE: A CBS Texas I-Team report, Texas DMV Made $3M Last Year Selling Drivers' Personal Information, and an October 2025 report, States collect millions by selling drivers' data to private investigators, data brokers, describe states earning money from this data. Those are news reports. I have not seen the agency's own numbers.

The receipt

HB 1131, FACT from the bill text. It adds Section 2301.364 to the Occupations Code. A dealer who sells or exchanges a motor vehicle with a GPS tracking device installed shall, at the time of the sale:

• verbally notify the buyer that the device is installed, and
• on request of the buyer, remove the device at no cost to the buyer.

That is the whole bill. Two duties.

HB 1134, FACT from the bill text. It rewrites Section 730.007(a) of the Transportation Code. These lines get struck from the list of approved uses for your motor vehicle record information:

• motor vehicle safety, theft, recalls and performance monitoring
• business use to verify information you gave a business
• research and statistical reports
• the separate line for insurers and insurance support groups
• notice to owners of towed or impounded vehicles
• licensed private investigators and security services
• toll road operations
• consumer reporting agencies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
• manufacturer, dealer and distributor market research and surveys

What stays:

• government agencies, courts and law enforcement, and private contractors working for them
• court and legal proceedings, including serving papers and enforcing judgments
• employers checking commercial driver's license holders
• licensed salvage dealers, independent dealers, auctions and parts recyclers, plus businesses licensed or regulated by the Texas DMV, state banking, lending, credit union, consumer credit and insurance regulators, and federal financial regulators
• employers, contractors, nonprofits, charities and churches checking their own workers and volunteers

The bill also repeals four other subsections of 730.007: (a-2), (d), (e) and (h).

What Ryan says

RYAN STATEMENT: I like both of these. Simple bills. Plain words. I can read them in five minutes and so can you.

On the tracker bill, I would make it stronger. Put it in writing on the paperwork, not just a word at the counter. A verbal notice is your word against theirs.

DOCUMENTED INFERENCE: Chapter 2301 of the Occupations Code is the chapter for dealers licensed under that chapter. Independent used car lots hold a separate license under Chapter 503 of the Transportation Code. If that reading holds, the lots most likely to put a tracker on a financed car may not be covered. Fix it. Cover every dealer.

On the DMV bill, I will say it straight. Your government should not be in the business of selling you. Show me how much money the state takes in from this, who buys it, and what they do with it. Then let's vote.

What this does not prove

It does not prove any Texas dealer is hiding trackers today.

It does not prove the DMV broke any law. Current law allows these releases.

It does not shut everybody out. Insurance regulated businesses and financial companies keep a path in through the regulated business line.

It does not mean either bill will get a hearing. Filing is step one.

What it does prove

A Texas lawmaker put two driver privacy fixes on paper on November 12.

The current list of who can get your motor vehicle record information is long, and HB 1134 would cut a big piece of it.

HB 1131 would give every buyer covered by it the right to say "take that thing off" and pay nothing.

The bottom line

You paid for it. It is yours.

Your truck should not report to anybody you did not pick. Your name should not be a product on a state shelf.

Read the bills. They are short. Then tell your own representative what you think.

Do not threaten anyone. Do not harass anyone. Do not contact anyone in my name. Read it. Share it. Send receipts, evidence, witnesses. Put eyes on the record.