CPM Is Investigating General Motors for Sharing Driving Behavior With Data Brokers Without Knowing Consent from Drivers
GENERAL MOTORS (GM) DRIVER TRACKING INVESTIGATION
CPM Is Investigating General Motors for Sharing Driving Behavior With Data Brokers Without Knowing Consent from Drivers.
DO YOU OWN A GM VEHICLE (CHEVROLET, CADILLAC, BUICK OR GMC) WITH ONSTAR SERVICES?
GM MAY HAVE SOLD INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DRIVING HABITS TO DATA BROKERS WHO THEN SOLD THAT INFORMATION TO YOUR INSURER. You may be entitled to compensation from a class action lawsuit.
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy is investigating a secretive practice of GM to track owners’ driving habits and sell this information to third-party data brokers, who then sell the information to insurers, which often caused owners’ insurance rates to go up. These practices were first revealed in a report from the Mozilla Foundation titled: “After Researching Cars and Privacy, Here’s What Keeps Us up at Night,” and then by an article in the NY Times. Among the metrics recorded are average speed, frequency and intensity of acceleration and braking, percentage of time that the speed exceeds 80 miles per hour (“MPH”), and late-night driving habits.
In response to a congressional inquiry, GM was vague and evasive with respect to its data harvesting and selling, but ultimately it admitted it was tracking its drivers and selling this information to Verisk Analytics, Inc. (Verisk), and LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Inc. (LexisNexis). Verisk and LexisNexis have in turn sold the driving behavior data to insurers who have used the information as a basis to hike drivers’ insurance rates.
Faced with consumer and Congressional outrage over its profiteering from the collection of driver data, in March 2024, GM stopped the practice. But it has done nothing to compensate drivers subjected to these wrongful practices, who have had their behavior surreptitiously tracked and may have had their insurance rates wrongly increased.
Companies like GM must respect consumers’ privacy. Consumers cannot allow their private behavior to be hoovered up by mega corporations like GM so the corporations can unjustly boost their profits. Consumers who have been tracked and had their private information sold are entitled to compensation. Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy Partner Thomas E. Loeser is a former federal cyber-prosecutor who specializes in consumer privacy cases. If you own a GM vehicle equipped with OnStar and believe your insurance rates have gone up from tracking information, please contact us at (650) 697-6000, DataPrivacy@cpmlegal.com for your free, no obligation consultation.