By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeare

GM banned from selling your driving data for five years

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2025-01-17 17:00:07

By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar are banned from selling customer geolocation and driving behavior data for five years, the Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday.

The settlement comes after a New York Times investigation found that GM had been collecting micro-details about its customers’ driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length — and then selling it to insurance companies and third-party data brokers like LexisNexis and Verisk. Clueless vehicle owners were then left wondering why their insurance premiums were going up.

For example, one consumer told a GM customer service representative that “[w]hen I signed up for this, it was so OnStar could track me. They said nothing about reporting it to a third party. Nothing. […] You guys are affecting our bottom line. I pay you, now you’re making me pay more to my insurance company.”