General Motors has reached a settlement with California to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties over the sale of customers' driving data. The agreement also imposes a five-year ban on selling such information to consumer reporting agencies, adding to prior regulatory actions including a finalized FTC settlement earlier this year.
The settlement resolves allegations that General Motors collected driving data through its OnStar program and sold it to brokers without customer consent. The data included names, contact details, geolocation and driving behavior, which brokers could then market to insurers. California law already prevents insurers from using this information to raise rates, but the complaint claimed the sales violated state privacy rules anyway.
This follows the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's finalized order in January 2026, which banned GM from sharing similar vehicle data with third parties for five years and required explicit consent. GM had already discontinued its Smart Driver program in 2024 amid multiple state investigations.
