General Motors will pay $220 million to settle claims brought by attorneys general from 35 states and the District of Columbia over allegations that it secretly collected and sold drivers’ location and behavioural data to third-party brokers. The information was then passed to insurance companies, which used it to assess motorists and, in some cases, raise their premiums.

The scandal exposes the increasingly predatory relationship between corporations and the people whose lives they monitor. 

What was marketed as a programme to encourage safer driving became, according to state investigators, a mechanism for harvesting personal information and turning the intimate details of everyday life into a commodity. 

Braking habits, acceleration, mileage and location became data points in a commercial system over which drivers had little meaningful control.

GM’s Smart Driver programme, launched in 2016 and discontinued in 2024, enrolled millions of motorists. Many were also customers of OnStar, GM’s safety, navigation and diagnostic service. 

Drivers were led to believe they were participating in a programme designed to improve road safety. State authorities allege that GM violated those assurances by sharing their information without proper permission.

“People bought a car, not a tracking device,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said.

The $220 million settlement requires GM to restrict the driving information it collects and obtain express consent before collecting or sharing it. 

But the financial penalty does little to obscure the larger question: how did corporations come to regard the private movements and habits of ordinary people as assets to be extracted, packaged and sold?

This is not an isolated incident. In May, GM agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California investigation into the alleged sale of driver information to data brokers. 

In January 2025, it agreed with the Federal Trade Commission not to disclose vehicle geolocation and driving behaviour data to consumer reporting agencies for five years.

GM says it has taken steps to strengthen customer privacy. Yet the fundamental business model remains troubling. In an economy increasingly organised around surveillance, the consumer is no longer simply the customer. 

The consumer is the product, the source of the data, and ultimately the person who may pay the price for its exploitation.