GM agrees to pay $12.75M in California driver privacy settlement

General Motors has reached a privacy-related settlement with a group of law enforcement agencies led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Back in 2024, The New York Times reported that automakers including GM were sharing information about their customers’ driving behavior with insurance companies, and that some customers were concerned that their insurance rates had gone up as a result.

The settlement announcement from Bonta’s office similarly alleges that GM sold “the names, contact information, geolocation data, and driving behavior data of hundreds of thousands of Californians” to Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which are both data brokers.  Bonta’s office further alleges that this data was collected through GM’s OnStar program, and that the company made roughly $20 million from data sales.

However, Bonta’s office also said the data did not lead to increased insurance prices in California, “likely because under California’s insurance laws, insurers are prohibited from using driving data to set insurance rates.”

As part of the settlement, GM has agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties and to stop selling driving data to any consumer reporting agencies for five years, Bonta’s office said. GM has also agreed to delete any driver data that it still retains within 180 days (unless it obtains consent from customers), and to request that Lexis and Verisk delete that data.

“General Motors sold the data of California drivers without their knowledge or consent and despite numerous statements reassuring drivers that it would not do so,” Bonta said in a statement, adding that the settlement “requires General Motors to abandon these illegal practices and underscores the importance of the data minimization in California’s privacy law — companies can’t just hold on to data and use it later for another purpose.”

GM had previously settled with the Federal Trade Commission over its data sales, with a final order banning General Motors and OnStar from selling certain data with consumer reporting agencies.

GM told Reuters that the settlement “addresses Smart Driver, a product we discontinued in 2024, and reinforces steps we’ve taken to strengthen our privacy practices.”