Nebraska AG Sues GM, OnStar for Collecting, Selling Driver Data Without Consent
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers (R) sued General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar on Tuesday for the alleged unlawful collection, processing and sale of sensitive driving data from state residents without their knowledge or consent. In a press conference Tuesday morning, Hilgers announced the suit, claiming violations of the Nebraska Consumer Protection Act and Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Privacy Daily provides accurate coverage of newsworthy developments in data protection legislation, regulation, litigation, and enforcement for privacy professionals responsible for ensuring effective organizational data privacy compliance.
Since around 2015, “when you would buy a car from GM, ... they would generally take your data, and they would sell it to third-party companies,” Hilgers said. “Those third-party companies, in turn, would sell it to insurance companies. Those insurance companies would use the data that they received from General Motors … including how fast you were driving, how hard your stops were, where you went, whether you had your seat belt [on], and they used that data to make decisions regarding people's insurance.”
Such data collection and use requires GM and OnStar to notify customers, but “nowhere in any of their disclosures did GM tell people that this is what they were going to do,” Hilgers said.
This lawsuit follows similar complaints filed by other states against GM for its collection and sale of data, starting with Texas in 2024 (see 2501160029). Arkansas filed its suit in February (see 2502260044) and Indiana in March (see 2503270040). In January, the FTC also proposed a nonmonetary settlement with GM and OnStar over allegations that the companies collected and sold consumers’ location data without proper consent (see 2501170068).