Minnesota to Receive More Than $7 Million in GM Driver Data Settlement

(KNSI) — General Motors will pay $220 million to settle allegations that it illegally sold consumers’ private driving and location data to third parties, including data brokers that passed it on to insurance companies.

According to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, GM enrolled millions of drivers in its Smart Driver program from 2016 to 2024. GM pitched the program as a way for drivers to improve their safety and told them it would not share their data with insurers without express consent. The attorneys general allege GM instead sold the data to brokers under contracts specifying it would be used for insurance products. The brokers then sold it to insurers, which could change drivers’ premiums based on their driving habits. For many consumers, the data was used in part to set insurance rates.

The office says most customers signed up at GM dealerships when they bought a car, using a single sign-up process that covered both Smart Driver and OnStar services. Dealership employees allegedly accepted the terms and conditions on behalf of customers without their consent. At the time, GM was incentivizing dealerships to enroll as many customers as possible, with sales employees receiving bonuses based in part on enrollment numbers.

The attorneys general also say the OnStar app wrongly told 370,000 drivers they were not enrolled in Smart Driver when they were, and that GM later unenrolled them without notification, leaving their data with the brokers and insurers.

The data included how often a person drove, the start and end times of each trip, how many times they braked or accelerated quickly, and whether they exceeded the speed limit. GM discontinued the program after The New York Times reported on the practice.

The state is part of a bipartisan coalition of 36 attorneys general that reached the settlement and will receive $7,095,664.

Under the settlement, GM must obtain affirmative express consent before collecting or disclosing driving and location data, limit the data it collects, and put a comprehensive data privacy program in place. The terms include internal and external privacy assessments, along with oversight and training requirements at dealerships to prevent customers from being enrolled in data collection without their consent.

The Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act took effect after GM ended the program, but the office says GM remains subject to it. The law includes heightened protections for sensitive data such as location data, limits on how data may be used and retained, and the right to opt out of the sale of personal data.

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