General Motors just agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California lawsuit over how it handled customer driving data. The issue? GM was collecting detailed driving information through OnStar and selling it to data brokers.
This matters if you're building AI products that use personal data or just care about privacy in connected devices. The line between useful telemetry and surveillance keeps getting blurrier, and regulators are starting to push back.
The case highlights how modern vehicles have become data collection machines. Your car knows when you brake hard, how fast you accelerate, where you drive, and when. That information has real value to insurance companies and other third parties.
For anyone working with connected devices or AI systems that process user behavior, this is a clear signal. Collecting data is one thing. Selling it without explicit, informed consent is another. California isn't playing around with privacy violations anymore.
If you own a newer GM vehicle with OnStar, you might want to check your privacy settings. And if you're building products that collect user data, make sure your consent flows are crystal clear about what happens to that information.
