General Motors Caught Red-Handed: Texas Sues for Billions Over Decade-Long Data Theft

Gm logged all your data without consent… sold it to insurance companies… insurance companies then raised rates… Texas found out and is now suing GM

edit - they also gave data to law enforcement without a warrant, sold info to bondsman and bounty hunters etc

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Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton Sues Gen­er­al Motors for Unlaw­ful­ly Col­lect­ing Dri­vers’ Pri­vate Data and Sell­ing It To Sev­er­al Com­pa­nies, Includ­ing Insur­ance Companies

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued General Motors for its false, deceptive, and misleading business practices related to its unlawful collection and sale of over 1.5 million Texans’ private driving data to insurance companies without their knowledge or consent.

This action follows Attorney General Paxton’s June 2024 announcement that he opened an investigation into several car manufacturers regarding allegations that the companies had improperly collected mass amounts of data about drivers directly from the vehicles and then sold the information to third parties.

“Our investigation revealed that General Motors has engaged in egregious business practices that violated Texans’ privacy and broke the law. We will hold them accountable,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Companies are using invasive technology to violate the rights of our citizens in unthinkable ways. Millions of American drivers wanted to buy a car, not a comprehensive surveillance system that unlawfully records information about every drive they take and sells their data to any company willing to pay for it.”

General Motors used technology installed in most 2015 model year or newer GM vehicles to collect, record, analyze, and transmit highly detailed driving data about each time a driver used their vehicle. General Motors sold this information to several other companies, including to at least two companies for the purpose of generating “Driving Scores” about GM’s customers and selling these scores to insurance companies. General Motors deceived many of its customers when it compelled them to enroll in its products, including OnStar Smart Driver, as part of its vehicle “onboarding” process and told them that failing to enroll would result in the deactivation of their vehicle’s safety features. Unbeknownst to customers, however, by enrolling in GM’s products, they were “agreeing” to General Motors’ collection and sale of their data. Despite lengthy and convoluted disclosures, General Motors never informed its customers of its actual conduct—the systematic collection and sale of their highly detailed driving data.

The investigation was part of a broad data privacy and security initiative launched by Attorney General Paxton in June 2024 to ensure that companies respect Texans’ privacy rights and enforce privacy protection laws.

To read the filing, click here.

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Scumbags. I bet other auto manufacturers do this as well.

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Paxton looks like a weasely guy, but has done a lot of good for Texas.

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Bet on it. GM was just stupid enough to get caught.

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Agreed but I feel bad for the plant workers who are just building the cars. They for sure will be impacted if GM gets handled in court.

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My wife’s new Toyota has a sticker near the moonroof with a disclaimer about collecting information. I’m gonna try to disable this sooner rather than later after reading this.

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Doesn’t surprise me. You can expect any big company to give away your information at any given time. Hopefully they get fucked here.

Just don’t void the warranty!

Sand disrupts the data sensors. No need to drain and risk epa fines.

ttt

What a bunch of assholes. Another reason not to buy a shitty gm.

Lol at them selling a 1000 hp corvette and sending the data to insurance and law enforcement