General Motors has agreed to fork over $12.75 million to settle a privacy complaint brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of law enforcement agencies. The issue? GM allegedly sold the names, contact information, geolocation data, and driving behavior of hundreds of thousands of Californians to data brokers Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions - all collected through its OnStar program, because nothing says "trust us" like a car that's also a snitch.
Back in 2024, The New York Times reported that automakers including GM were sharing driving data with insurance companies, leading some customers to notice their premiums creeping up. Bonta's office alleges GM made roughly $20 million from these data sales. But here's the plot twist: Bonta says the data didn't actually raise insurance rates in California, likely because state law prohibits insurers from using driving data to set rates. So the harm was mostly existential dread and a violated sense of privacy - which, admittedly, is still not great.
Under the settlement, GM will pay $12.75 million in civil penalties, stop selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies for five years, and delete any retained driver data within 180 days (unless customers give consent). GM must also ask Lexis and Verisk to delete the 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, adding that the settlement "underscores the importance of data minimization in California's privacy law - companies can't just hold on to data and use it later for another purpose."
GM previously settled with the Federal Trade Commission over the same data sales, with an order banning the company from selling certain data to 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." Translation: We stopped doing the thing, so please stop being mad about it.