On October 29, 2026, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced that General Motors (GM) will pay $220 million to settle allegations that it unlawfully sold consumers’ private driver behavior data and location information to third parties without their knowledge or consent. Maryland will receive $7.33 million from the settlement, which requires GM to obtain affirmative consent from consumers before collecting or disclosing their driving and location data.
The settlement follows a coalition of 36 attorneys general, including Brown, who alleged that GM's practices impacted consumers' insurance rates and involved misleading enrollment processes for its Smart Driver program. The program tracked drivers' geolocation and habits, and GM is now mandated to implement a comprehensive data privacy program.
Press Release: Office of the Attorney General of Maryland
Published October 29, 2026. Reproduced in full from the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland.
Attorney General Brown Announces $220M Multistate Settlement with General Motors for Sharing Drivers’ Private Data
BALTIMORE, MD: Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced that General Motors (GM) will pay $220 million to settle allegations that it unlawfully sold consumers’ private driver behavior data and location information to third parties, including data brokers who then sold the data to insurance companies, without the consumers’ knowledge or consent. For some consumers, this data was used by insurance companies to help set insurance rates. Of the $220 million settlement, Maryland will receive $7.33 million.
Attorney General Brown joined a coalition of 36 attorneys general in the case against GM. The settlement requires GM to obtain affirmative, express consent from consumers before collecting or disclosing consumer driving and location data and, going forward, to protect consumer personal information as part of a comprehensive data privacy program. The settlement terms mandate regular internal and external data protection and privacy program assessments. GM also agreed to dealership oversight and training requirements to protect consumers against being enrolled in data collection schemes without their consent.
“Without asking permission, General Motors sold its customers’ driving and location data, which, in some cases, was used by insurance companies to set drivers’ rates,” said Attorney General Brown. “Because of our settlement, GM can no longer prioritize profit over Marylanders’ privacy.”
From 2016 to 2024, GM enrolled millions of drivers in their Smart Driver program, which tracked their geolocation and driving habits. GM pitched this tool as a way for drivers to improve their own driving safety and told drivers that they would not share their data with insurers without express consent.
Today’s settlement resolves allegations that GM sold this information to third parties that then sold it to insurance companies, potentially impacting consumers’ insurance rates.
The data GM allegedly sold was personal, identifiable, and specific; insurers received data showing how many times a person drove their vehicle, the start and end times of each drive, how many times they braked or accelerated quickly, and whether they went faster than the speed limit. The New York Times reported that insurance companies then used this information to change rates, sometimes increasing their premiums. After the Times reported on these practices, GM discontinued the Smart Driver program.
Most consumers who signed up for Smart Driver did so at a GM dealership when they bought their car. According to the allegations, GM signed consumers up for both Smart Driver and GM’s OnStar services through a single misleading process. And, in many cases, dealership employees allegedly accepted terms and conditions on behalf of customers without their consent. At the time, GM was heavily incentivizing dealerships to sign up as many customers for OnStar as possible. Sales employees received bonuses based in part on how many customers they signed up for GM’s connected vehicle services, and dealerships were ranked based on their enrollment numbers.
The coalition also alleged that there were instances where GM’s own systems failed to notify drivers about whether their data was being tracked. According to the allegations, the OnStar app mistakenly told over 370,000 drivers that they were not enrolled in Smart Driver, when they actually were enrolled in the service, and GM was collecting and selling their data. GM, allegedly, later unenrolled these over 370,000 drivers without telling them about the mistake and left their data with the data brokers and insurance companies.
The case was co-led by the attorneys general of Washington and Oregon, assisted by an Executive Committee that included Maryland Attorney General Brown along with the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, Utah, and Vermont. Today’s settlement also was joined by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
