GM pays $12.75M to settle California lawsuit over selling driver location and behavior data to insurance brokers

General Motors has agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California data privacy lawsuit, ending a legal battle over the company's practice of selling detailed driver information to data brokers. The proposed settlement, filed in California court, requires GM to stop sharing customer data with third-party brokers for five years and grant California drivers the ability to opt out of OnStar location tracking.

The lawsuit emerged after a 2024 New York Times investigation exposed how GM, along with other major automakers, had been collecting and monetizing sensitive driving data. The report revealed that GM transmitted information including vehicle speed, hard braking events, rapid acceleration patterns, and precise location data to data brokers without meaningful consent from vehicle owners. These data points hold significant value for insurance companies assessing driver risk.

The settlement marks a rare legal consequence for automakers' data practices, an industry-wide concern that has drawn increasing scrutiny from regulators and privacy advocates. California drivers will now have a clearer mechanism to prevent GM's OnStar service from collecting their location information. The five-year prohibition on data sales represents a partial reset of the company's data monetization operations, though the $12.75 million payment falls far short of the potential exposure the company faced had the case proceeded to trial.