General Motors to pay $12.75 million over California privacy scandal

General Motors (GM) has reached a privacy settlement with law enforcement agencies led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The company was accused of selling customer driving habit data to insurance companies without their consent, reports Techcrunch.com reports .

According to the investigation, GM used its OnStar program to sell the names, geolocation data, and driving behavior of hundreds of thousands of Californians to data brokers like Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The company earned approximately $20 million from this unauthorized trade.

Under the terms of the settlement, GM will pay a $12.75 million fine and stop selling driver data to consumer reporting agencies for the next five years. The company must also delete all stored data within 180 days and require its partners to do the same.

Rob Bonta stated that the company misled customers and violated their privacy rights. GM representatives noted that the settlement concerns the Smart Driver product, which was discontinued in 2024, and that the company is taking steps to strengthen its privacy policies.