Privacy is a scarce commodity these days. If it’s not the White House or pharmacists, it’s your car spying on you. We’re not talking about speed limit cameras or other external surveillance but rather about your very own set of wheels.
A coalition of 36 state attorneys general today announced it had secured a $220 million settlement from General Motors for illegally selling driver’s private comings and goings to insurance companies.
“General Motors collected data on their customers’ personal driving habits without their knowledge and then sold it, potentially affecting their insurance rates. Today, we are putting a stop to this illegal violation of drivers’ privacy,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The spying was part of what GM called its Smart Driver program. From 2016 to 2024, the company enrolled millions of drivers, billing it as a safety effort that would help drivers improve their habits — and it assured them the data would not be shared without their express consent.
But in reality, said James and the other AGs, GM sold the information to data brokers and specified that the information was to be used for insurance purposes.
The New York Times investigated and found that there were indeed drivers whose premiums increased after GM sold their data. One driver whose premium went up 22 percent obtained a 130-page report that showed details of every trip he had taken for a six-month period, the Times reported.
Teamed with OnStar
Most consumers who signed up for the service did so when they bought their cars, often in conjunction with GM’s OnStar service, which connects drivers to roadside assistance and other services.
James said that GM’s system promised to notify drivers when they were being tracked but did not always do so. The OnStar app mistakenly told 370,000 drivers that they were not being spied on, she said.
New limits set
The settlement requires GM to pay $220 million to the states that investigated it and to limit the driving data it collects from consumers so that their personal information is not revealed.