October 29, 2026
(Anchorage, AK) – Acting Attorney General Cori Mills announced today that Alaska, as part of a coalition of 36 attorneys general, settled with General Motors to resolve allegations that it illegally sold consumers’ private driver behavior data and location information to third parties, including data brokers who then sold the data to insurance companies. For many consumers, this data was used by insurance companies in part to set insurance rates.
The settlement requires GM to obtain affirmative express consent from consumers before collecting or disclosing consumer driving and location data. GM will pay a total of $220 million, and Alaska will receive $2,508,188.
“As part of this settlement, GM will implement a robust data privacy program to ensure that meaningful safeguards are finally in place,” said Acting Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills. “This holds GM accountable and reinforces our commitment to safeguarding Alaskans’ personal information.”
From 2016 to 2024, GM enrolled millions of drivers in their Smart Driver program, which tracked their 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.
However, the coalition found that GM sold this information to data brokers under contracts that specified the data was to be used for insurance products. The data brokers sold the data to insurance companies, who could then change the driver’s premium based on their driving habits. GM did not disclose to drivers that their data would be sold for this purpose.
Most customers who signed up for Smart Driver did so at the GM dealership when they bought their car. GM used one sign-up process for drivers to enroll in Smart Driver along with GM’s OnStar services. 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. Dealerships were also ranked based on their enrollment numbers.
GM’s own systems failed to notify drivers about whether their data was being tracked. The OnStar app mistakenly told over 370,000 drivers that they were not enrolled in Smart Driver, when they were in fact enrolled, meaning that GM was collecting and selling their data without their knowledge. GM later quietly unenrolled these over 370,000 drivers without telling them about the mistake and left their data with the data brokers and insurance companies.
The data GM sold was personal, identifiable, and specific. Insurers had 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. As documented in the New York Times, 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.
The settlement also requires GM to limit the driving data it collects from consumers and protect their personal information going forward as part of a comprehensive data privacy program. The terms secured by the coalition are significantly stronger than any other resolution reached with GM for this conduct, including by mandating internal and external data protection and privacy program assessments. GM also agreed to oversight and training requirements at their dealerships to protect consumers against being enrolled in data collection schemes without their consent.
The case was co-led by Washington and Oregon, assisted by the Executive Committee of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Utah, and Vermont, and joined by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawai’i, 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.
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Department Media Contact: Information Officer Sam Curtis at sam.curtis@alaska.gov or (907) 269-6269.
Due to resource constraints, we no longer post links to referenced records. Records filed in a federal court are readily available at Docket Search or PACER, and records filed in a State of Alaska court are readily available from the Alaska Court System (Trial Courts - Alaska Court System and Search for an Appellate Case). Contact Sam Curtis to request a referenced record that is not readily available from a court or on the internet, or contact law.recordsrequest@alaska.gov to submit a formal Alaska Public Records Act request.
