General Motors agreed to a $220 million settlement with 36 attorneys general who say it sold drivers' trip and location records to data brokers that resold them to insurance companies. The deal, announced Thursday, October 29, also bars GM from collecting or sharing that kind of data again without first asking drivers, and gives drivers ways to see and delete what GM holds.
Oregon and Washington led the coalition. According to Oregon's announcement, insurers used the data in part to set rates, and some drivers' premiums went up.
What GM is accused of
From 2016 to 2024, GM signed millions of drivers up for Smart Driver, a feature that tracked how they drove. The records insurers bought included trip counts, the start and end time of each drive, episodes of hard braking and rapid acceleration, and speeding.
The states say GM promised drivers it would not hand that information to insurers without their explicit OK, then sold it to brokers whose contracts named insurance products as the use. Most people were enrolled at the dealership, through the same sign-up that activated OnStar, and in many cases dealership staff allegedly accepted the terms for them. Salespeople earned bonuses partly based on how many customers they enrolled.
For more than 370,000 people, the OnStar app wrongly showed Smart Driver as off while GM kept collecting and selling their data; GM later quietly removed them from the program without explaining the error, the states say. GM has since ended Smart Driver. The settlement resolves the claims without a trial or any court finding on the facts.
What changes for drivers
The consent judgment Massachusetts filed in Suffolk Superior Court spells out the terms, which take effect November 30, 2026.
| Requirement | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Get each driver's affirmative, express consent first, for any collection or sharing of driving or location data | From Nov. 30, 2026 |
| Ask companies that received drivers' data before Jan. 16, 2025, to delete it | Before GM shares data with them again |
| Delete driving data GM kept from before Jan. 16, 2025, unless a driver agrees to let GM keep it | Within 180 days |
| Offer an easy way to request deletion of your driving data | Ongoing, through Jan. 13, 2046 |
| Offer an easy way to get a copy of your data and the types of companies it was shared with | Requests answered within 45 days |
| Email a notice of these options to drivers enrolled in OnStar from Jan. 1, 2018, onward | After a litigation hold on the data ends |
GM may email drivers whose older data it still holds to ask for consent to keep it. If a driver says no or does not answer within 30 days, GM has to delete that data.
The $220 million goes to the states, not directly to drivers. Massachusetts will receive about $5.7 million, according to its announcement, and Oregon more than $10.4 million. The judgment also requires dealership training and outside privacy assessments.
