The agreement with 35 US states and Washington, DC requires GM to limit driving-data collection, protect personal information and strengthen privacy checks and dealership oversight.
General Motors has agreed to pay $220 million to resolve a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of 35 US states and the District of Columbia. The settlement requires the automaker to limit the driving data it collects from customers and protect their personal information.
Engadget, recounting The New York Times’ reporting in 2024, said GM enrolled millions of customers in Smart Driver from 2016 through 2024 and tracked their driving habits. Smart Driver was a feature of GM’s OnStar connected-vehicle service.
The attorneys general said GM did not tell customers that information about hard braking, late-night driving and speeding would be sold to data brokers for insurance purposes. GM offered dealerships enrollment bonuses and that dealership employees sometimes accepted Smart Driver’s terms for customers without their express permission.
More than 370,000 drivers were incorrectly told they were not enrolled when they actually were. GM eventually removed those drivers from the program but did not notify them of the mistake and still sold their data.
California’s separate complaint alleged that GM sold drivers’ names, contact information, location and driving-behavior data to Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions during 2020–2024. California’s Department of Justice said the brokers intended to develop driver-rating products for insurers to use in setting premiums.
The California Department of Justice said California drivers had not experienced premium increases because of GM’s data sales, unlike drivers in other states. This was likely because California law prohibits insurers from using driving data to set rates.
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The US Federal Trade Commission announced a finalized separate order on January 14, 2026, imposing a 5-year ban on GM disclosing consumers’ location and driving-behavior data to consumer reporting agencies. Those agencies collect information used to assess consumers, including for insurance.
For the order’s 20-year duration, GM must obtain affirmative express consent before collecting, using or sharing connected-vehicle data, with exceptions such as providing location information to emergency first responders. GM must also give US consumers ways to request copies and deletion of their data, disable precise-location collection where their vehicles support it, and opt out of location and driving-behavior collection, with limited exceptions.
California’s Department of Justice announced its separate $12,750,000 civil-penalty settlement on May 7, 2026. The department said at the time that the agreement was subject to court approval.
Under the multistate agreement, GM must undergo internal and external assessments of its data-protection and privacy programs. The settlement also requires dealership oversight and additional training, bringing the enrollment practices described in the case under closer scrutiny.
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