GM Faces New Lawsuit For Secretly Selling Your Driving Data

As modern vehicles grow increasingly connected, privacy concerns are shifting into high gear. Automakers are under growing scrutiny for allegedly collecting and selling sensitive driving data to third parties, including insurance providers. The controversy escalated in 2024 when a New York Times investigation revealed that GM was sharing customer data with brokers, prompting a lawsuit from the state of Arkansas.

Read: FTC Bans GM From Selling Your Driving Data For 5 Years

Now, Nebraska has joined the fray, with Attorney General Mike Hilgers filing a lawsuit against General Motors and its OnStar division for what he describes as “unlawfully collecting, processing, and selling sensitive driving data” belonging to Nebraskans.

The lawsuit alleges that GM has, for years, deceptively collected and sold customers’ data without their knowledge or consent across the state. This information, collected through the OnStar telematics system, includes dates, start and end times of drivers, vehicle speed, driver and passenger seatbelt status, and distances traveled. It’s alleged GM collected and sold driving data from over 14 million vehicles in the US, “many thousands of which belonged to Nebraskans.”

Driving Behavior Turned Into a Score

After collecting driving data, GM reportedly entered into agreements with third-party companies to store this data and then assign a ‘Driving Score’ to each customer based on several risk factors that were tracked. These included instances of hard braking, hard acceleration, seatbelt status, and instances of sharp turns. The third-party firms are also accused of reselling access to this information to car insurance providers.

Thousands Of Locals Impacted

According to Hilgers, “GM earned millions of dollars in lump sum payments from the third parties, royalty payments based on telematics exchange licenses sold to insurers, and annual guaranteed payments if GM sold the Driving Data of a certain number of newly sold GM vehicles.”

The complaint also claims GM misrepresented customer consent, telling these companies that drivers had agreed to the collection and sale of their data.

The Nebraska Attorney General disputes those claims, stating that GM relied on “deceptive, unconscionable, and unlawful tactics to enroll its customers in its data collection programs.” The state’s lawsuit seeks civil penalties, restitution for affected residents, and a court order to stop GM and OnStar from continuing these practices.

“Nebraskans deserve to work with companies that are truthful and honest about what they are doing,” Hilgers said in a statement. “That is not what happened here, and we filed this lawsuit because one large company decided that it wouldn’t honestly tell Nebraskans that their data was going to be used to impact their insurance rates. This is wrong. Our office will hold companies that mislead Nebraskans accountable, no matter how large.”

As automakers race to define the future of mobility, cases like this raise a deeper question: in the drive toward connectivity, who’s actually in control of their personal data? For many consumers, it may be the first time they’re realizing just how much their car knows, but more importantly, how many others might be listening.

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