General Motors has agreed to pay $220 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of 35 US states and the District of Columbia over its discontinued Smart Driver program, which collected driving data and sold it to insurance companies without clear customer consent.
The settlement, reported by Ars Technica and Engadget, marks one of the largest privacy penalties tied to connected-car data. It follows a separate FTC action that banned GM and its OnStar subsidiary from sharing certain driver data with third parties for five years.
How GM's Smart Driver program worked
Smart Driver was marketed as a tool for parents to monitor teen drivers or for adults to track their own habits. But according to reporting by The New York Times in 2024, GM enrolled millions of customers between 2016 and 2024 and logged data on hard braking, late-night driving, and speeding.
That information was sold to data brokers, who then passed it to insurance companies. Some drivers saw their premiums rise as a result. The attorneys general said GM never told customers their data would be used that way, and many drivers were not even aware they had been enrolled.
Dealerships were reportedly incentivized with bonuses to sign up as many customers as possible, and some employees allegedly accepted terms and conditions on behalf of customers without their express permission. More than 370,000 drivers were told they were not enrolled even though they were, according to the AGs; GM later unenrolled them but did not notify them and still sold their data.
- Data collected: hard braking, late-night driving, speeding
- Enrollment period: 2016–2024
- More than 370,000 drivers incorrectly told they were not enrolled
