Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has announced a lawsuit against General Motors and OnStar, which is owned by GM. He said the companies illegally collected, processed and sold sensitive driving data from Nebraskans without their knowledge or consent for ten years.
Lawsuit allegations
According to the suit, GM installed telematics systems in its vehicles. Those systems tracked different data points, including speed, driving habits and location.
The suit then accuses GM of packaging that data and selling it to third-party brokers to create “driving scores” for millions of people. Those scores were then sold to insurance companies who allegedly used them to raise rates, deny coverage and even cancel policies.
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“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.”
The suit also alleges that GM deceived consumers by misrepresenting the nature and scope of the OnStar connected services, leading people to believe that enrollment was mandatory to access basic safety features.
Hilgers alleges that GM failed to inform people that enrollment would allow the company to collect and sell their personal data.
The complaint seeks civil penalties, restitution for impacted Nebraskans and to prevent GM and OnStar from continuing these practices in Nebraska.
General Motors response
A spokesperson for GM told local station KSNW, “We remain committed to protecting consumers’ privacy and will conduct a review of the complaint.”
Previously, GM admitted to The New York Times that the company shares “select insights” about certain driving data with data brokers. GM also has a partnership with LexisNexis, a leading provider of data and analytics.
According to the lawsuit, GM has 54 dealerships across Nebraska and delivered nearly 19,000 vehicles to the state in 2023 alone.
Similar suits
This filing mirrors a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in August 2024. Like Hilgers, Paxton alleged GM collected driver data and sold that information without customers’ knowledge.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also acted against GM and OnStar in January over similar allegations. Under their proposal, GM and OnStar would be banned for five years from disclosing consumers’ sensitive geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies.
They also require GM to take other steps for better transparency and choice to consumers over data collection and use of that data.
The FTC’s complaint also accused GM of using a misleading enrollment process to get consumers to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service.
“GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “With this action, the FTC is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.” The Nebraska Examiner reports the FTC has not yet voted to finalize that agreement.
