General Motors will pay $12.75 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected and sold the personal and driving data of hundreds of thousands of Californians.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the civil penalty, accusing GM of harvesting data from OnStar subscribers - including names, phone numbers, home addresses, speeds, hard braking events, and GPS locations - then selling that information to data brokers Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions without customer knowledge or consent.
The state's lawsuit claims GM told subscribers their data would only be used to improve services like emergency response and navigation. But starting in 2020, GM profited approximately $20 million nationally from those data sales.
As part of the settlement, GM is barred from selling driver data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. It must also delete retained driving data within six months and require the brokers to do the same.