HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a lawsuit today against automotive manufacturer General Motors (GM) and its subsidiary OnStar for selling customers data without their consent. The company’s deceptive practices are a violation of Montana’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act.
The lawsuit, filed in Lewis and Clark County, alleges GM and OnStar deceptively enrolled its customers into a service that collected their driving data and then sold it to data brokers without their consent. Those data brokers, in turn, sold the customer data to insurance carriers who used it to increase customers’ rates. The data included vehicle speed, seatbelt buckle status, when a hard brake occurs, and dozens of other driving data points.
Attorney General Knudsen is asking the court, under Montana’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act, for a permanent injunction barring GM and OnStar from continuing to engage in these unfair or deceptive acts, order them to pay civil fines, and delete and destroy all driving data including any in the possession of a third party.
“GM engaged in deceptive practices by taking Montanans driving data and selling it to other brokers without their permission. That’s a violation of the law and I will hold them accountable,” Attorney General Knudsen said.
According to the lawsuit, when a customer bought or leased a vehicle from a GM dealership, they were subjected to an aggressive onboarding process that appeared to be required before taking ownership of the vehicle. While GM would present customers with more than 50 pages of disclosures on its OnStar products, it was never stated that GM would sell any of the driving data it collected.
Further, GM also incentivized dealership employees, often through commissions, to enroll customers in its driving data collection scheme, which likely resulted in many customers getting enrolled without their knowledge or consent. Additionally, if a customer attempted to decline to enroll, they would be shown misleading warning messages that several of the vehicle’s safety features would be deactivated.
“GM turned a perennial symbol of American freedom and autonomy—the automobile—into Big Brother on wheels,” the lawsuit states.
In January, GM settled with the Federal Trade Commission for misrepresenting certain vehicle data collection and use practices to consumers. The settlement agreement imposed a five-year ban on GM disclosing consumer’s geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies.
