GM settles California OnStar driver data privacy probe for $12.75M
Key takeaways
- Pending court approval, the settlement is the largest penalty ever assessed under the California Consumer Privacy Act.
- The brokers intent was to build products that scored drivers and marketed those scores to auto insurers for rate-setting purposes.
- Investigators found that GM gave consumers no notice of the data sales and misled them by implying the information would only be used to provide OnStar services.
GM settles California On Star driver data privacy probe for $12.75M Quartz · Bloomberg / Getty Images Cris Tolomia Mon, May 11, 2026 at 6:21 PM GMT+7 3 min read GM VRSK General Motors has agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California investigation into allegations that the automaker illegally sold the driving and location data of hundreds of thousands of California residents to two data brokers, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Thursday.
Pending court approval, the settlement is the largest penalty ever assessed under the California Consumer Privacy Act. At issue is data gathered from subscribers to GM s OnStar platform — a service offering features like turn-by-turn navigation and emergency dispatch — which was then sold to data brokers Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions from 2020 through 2024. That data encompassed names, contact details, GPS coordinates, and records of how customers drove. Bonta s office estimates GM earned roughly $20 million from these transactions across the country.
The brokers intent was to build products that scored drivers and marketed those scores to auto insurers for rate-setting purposes. However, investigators found no evidence that California policyholders saw their premiums rise as a consequence of the data sales — an outcome Bonta s office attributed to a state law that bars insurers from factoring driving behavior data into rate decisions.