GM settles California lawsuit claiming it sold driving habit data to insurance companies

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Transportation TransportationPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Transportation News NewsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All News Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All TechGM settles California lawsuit claiming it sold driving habit data to insurance companiesUnder the settlement, GM must stop selling driver information to data brokers for five years. Under the settlement, GM must stop selling driver information to data brokers for five years. by Emma Roth Emma RothNews WriterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All by Emma RothMay 11, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Emma Roth Emma RothPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

General Motors has agreed to pay $12. 75 million to settle a California data privacy lawsuit that accused the automaker of selling driver location and driver data, as reported earlier by . In a proposed settlement filed on Friday, GM agreed to stop selling customer information to data brokers for five years and must give California drivers the ability to stop its OnStar service from collecting location data.

GM became the subject of several lawsuits after a 2024 report by The New York Times revealed that automakers, including GM, had been sharing driving data — such as speed, hard braking, and rapid acceleration — with data brokers and insurance companies, which reportedly adjusted pricing based on this information. The Federal Trade Commission finalized its settlement with GM and its OnStar subsidiary in January, preventing the companies from disclosing driver data to third-party brokers for five years. Under its settlement with California, GM must provide “clear and conspicuous” privacy notices about data collection when drivers enroll in OnStar.

Industry Implications

The automaker is also required to delete all driver data covered by the lawsuit and ask for customer consent before collecting or using a person’s driving data. “Today’s settlement requires General Motors to abandon these illegal practices and underscores the importance of the data minimization in California’s privacy law — companies can’t just hold on to data and use it later for another purpose,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta says in the press release. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Emma Roth Emma RothNews WriterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.