GM settles with 36 states for $220 million over Driver data

In 2024, a coalition of 36 U.S. state attorneys general took General Motors to court, alleging the automaker illegally gathered and sold driver behavior and location information to outside companies including data brokers. The automaker will pay $220 million to resolve the multistate case, directing more than $7 million to Michigan and more than $6 million to Connecticut and dividing the remainder among participating states. The agreement puts an end to the claims that GM gathered and sold driver information unlawfully.

The claims focus on GM’s Smart Driver program, which ran from 2016 to 2024 and which GM promoted as a driving-safety tool. The program allegedly signed up millions of drivers to track their behavior and location without clear disclosure or consent. GM had told drivers it would not share their information unless they gave explicit consent. After a 2024 New York Times report exposed the collection methods and triggered public criticism, GM halted the Smart Driver program in June 2024.

Smart Driver recorded fine-grained driving details including brake force, acceleration bursts, speed, trip length, and exact location coordinates. GM allegedly sold the information to data brokers, who then resold it to insurance companies, and insurers used the details to set rates for drivers. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the practices reached more than 10.28 million people nationwide, including at least 123,143 residents of Connecticut. The settlement resolves the allegations of unauthorized data sharing.

GM’s OnStar app wrongly told more than 370,000 drivers that their information was not being tracked, even though they were signed up for Smart Driver and their data was being gathered and sold. The company quietly removed these drivers from the program without pulling their information from brokers and insurers. The error left drivers believing their information was not being monitored while it was in fact still being gathered and sold.

Sales staff allegedly pushed buyers to enroll in Smart Driver, and workers earned bonuses for signing up large numbers of customers. Affected buyers often did not know they had been enrolled while purchasing a vehicle. Smart Driver was packaged with OnStar services, so drivers were enrolled automatically when they signed up without a clear break between the two consents.

Under the settlement, GM must get clear, affirmative consent from drivers before it gathers or shares their driving and location information. GM must also put data minimization standards in place, restricting the amount of driving information collected and protecting consumer data through a comprehensive privacy program. The agreement calls for audits of GM’s privacy practices from both inside and outside the company, and the consent standard matches earlier accords GM reached with California and the Federal Trade Commission.

GM will increase supervision and training for dealership workers so its workers do not sign customers up for data collection programs without permission. The settlement also bars bundled enrollment unless customers give explicit consent, and it requires a separate opt-in for connected-vehicle tracking. GM’s terms go further than earlier resolutions because they require outside assessments of whether the company follows its privacy program. The terms echo prior Federal Trade Commission and California pacts while adding new oversight rules.

GM’s May 2026 California settlement came to $12.75 million, which combined with the multistate payment brings the automaker’s total payout to $232.75 million. The California deal also covered sales of driver information to data brokers. California reached the agreement separately from the multistate case.

Going forward, GM will stop selling vehicle information tied to specific people, where they are, or how they drive, although the company may still share anonymized data with chosen partners. GM revised its privacy policy and launched a consumer-facing Privacy Center.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brought a separate case against GM in 2024, claiming the company used deceptive methods to collect and sell driver data and asking for civil penalties and a court order to erase the collected information. That lawsuit is still active and pursues penalties of as much as $10,000 for each violation. The Texas case is separate from the multistate settlement.

GM’s new OnStar AI assistant will let customers manage data sharing, with recordings that GM encrypts and keeps for a limited time, although choosing not to participate may restrict access to some features. The automaker introduced the feature at its GM Forward event in October 2026. GM described the assistant as a way for customers to control data sharing.