MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) and a coalition are announcing that General Motors (GM) will pay $220 million to settle allegations that it illegally sold consumers’ private driver behavior data and location information to third parties, including data brokers, who then sold the data to insurance companies. For many consumers, this data was used by insurance companies in part to set insurance rates.
Wisconsin will receive $5.12 million through the settlement. The settlement requires GM to obtain affirmative express consent from consumers before collecting or disclosing consumer driving and location data.
“No car company should be selling data about where and how people drive without consent from those drivers,” said AG Kaul. “Consumers should be accurately informed as to how data about them will be used.”
From 2016 to 2024, GM allegedly enrolled millions of drivers in its Smart Driver program, which tracked their driving habits. GM allegedly pitched this tool as a way for drivers to improve their own driving safety and told drivers that they would not share their data with insurers without express consent.
However, the coalition found that GM allegedly sold this information to data brokers under contracts that specified the data was to be used for insurance products. The brokers allegedly sold the data to insurance companies, who could then change the driver’s premium based on their driving habits. GM allegedly did not disclose to drivers that their data would be sold for this purpose.
Most customers who signed up for Smart Driver did so at the GM dealership when they bought their car. GM allegedly used one sign-up process for drivers to enroll in Smart Driver along with GM’s OnStar services. In many cases, dealership employees allegedly accepted terms and conditions on behalf of customers without their consent. At the time, GM allegedly was heavily incentivizing dealerships to sign up as many customers for OnStar as possible. Sales employees allegedly received bonuses based in part on how many customers they signed up for GM’s connected vehicle services and dealerships were ranked based on their enrollment numbers.
GM’s own systems allegedly failed to notify drivers about whether their data was being tracked. The OnStar app allegedly mistakenly told over 370,000 drivers that they were not enrolled in Smart Driver, when they actually were enrolled and GM was collecting and selling their data. GM allegedly later quietly unenrolled these over 370,000 drivers without telling them about the mistake and left their data with the data brokers and insurance companies.
The data GM sold was personal, identifiable, and specific. Insurers allegedly had data showing how many times a person drove their vehicle, the start and end times of each drive, how many times they braked or accelerated quickly, and whether they went faster than the speed limit. As documented in the New York Times, insurance companies then allegedly used this information to change rates, sometimes increasing their premiums. After the Times reported on these practices, GM discontinued the Smart Driver program.
The settlement also requires GM to limit the driving data it collects from consumers and protect their personal information going forward as part of a comprehensive data privacy program. The terms secured by the coalition are significantly stronger than any other resolution reached with GM for this conduct including by mandating internal and external data protection and privacy program assessments. GM also agreed to oversight and training requirements at their dealerships to protect consumers against being enrolled in data collection schemes without their consent.
Joining Wisconsin DOJ in the settlement are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
