This is how GM is able to track the driving habits of millions of its customers [Update]
![This is how GM is able to track the driving habits of millions of its customers [Update]](https://news7g.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/6188f88e6646ce6c5de1bf454f10e654-780x470.jpg)
We previously reported on how General Motors collected and sold data of millions of drivers involved in the insurance industry, but now it seems New York Times The reporter who first broke the story also received it caught up in this espionage. This happened to her and her husband in Chevy Bolt 2023 even though they have taken all the necessary steps to keep their car from being damaged scout about them.
This couple was none the wiser until they got it reports from LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk – two data brokers working with the insurance industry and GM has been providing data to. Her husband’s report listed 203 trips made by car since January. It includes things like distance, start and end times, and active driving data. Verisk’s report is from mid-December and includes 297 trips. It has a high-level summary to the top: 1,89.89 driving miles, 4,251 driving minutes, 170 emergency braking event24 fast acceleration events and zero acceleration events.
That is very normal for people opt-in to OnStar and a connected services package as well as Smart Drive, a program that provides feedback and digital badges for good driving. However, that’s not what the couple signed up for. From New York Times:
It wasn’t us – and I checked to be sure. In mid-January, again while reporting, I connected our car to the MyChevrolet app to see if we had Smart Driver registration. The app said we didn’t and therefore we didn’t have access to any information about how we drove.
But in April, when we discovered our driving was being tracked, my husband logged into the browser version of his account page, on GM.com, showing our car has been registered in “OnStar Smart Driver+”. GM said the discrepancy between the app and website was the result of “an error” affecting a “small group” of customers. That group has the worst possible version of Smart Driver: We can’t understand our driving any better, but insurance companies can.
The author of this story and her husband are not alone in this. From NYT:
Many GM owners have contacted similar accounts since my article appeared. Jenn Archer of Illinois bought a Chevy Trailblazer in April 2022. She had not signed up for OnStar and had never heard of Smart Driver, but discovered last month that LexisNexis had her driving data.
“I was so angry,” she said. In the past two years, her insurance rates have increased 50%.
In 10 federal lawsuits filed last month, drivers across the country say they did not knowingly sign up for Smart Driver but recently learned that GM had provided their driving data to LexisNexis. According to one of the complaints, a 2019 Cadillac CTS-V owner in Florida who drove it around a racetrack for events saw his insurance premiums nearly double, increasing by more than $5,000 per year. year.
They say that at no time were these drivers explicitly told that this would happen, even in the fine print. The new report reveals the cause: a misleading screen that these people might have glimpsed when they bought their car – if their salesperson had shown it to them.
Back in March of this year, GM said just that has stopped sharing data with LexisNexis and Verisk, causing them to lose annual revenue in the low millions of dollars. It has also hired a new chief trust and privacy officer.
Here’s how this happened to the author and her husband. From the time:
According to GM, our car was registered to Smart Driver when we bought it at a Chevrolet dealership in New York, during the rush to sign the documents that come with buying a new car. That this happened to me, a rare consumer who reads privacy policies and regularly monitors scary data collection, shows how little hope the average car buyer has.
To find out how it happened, I called our dealership, a General Motors franchise, and spoke to the dealer who sold us the car. He confirmed that he signed up for OnStar for us and noted that his wages would be garnished if he didn’t sign up. He said it’s GM’s job to send dealers a report card every month to track registration rates.
GM doesn’t just want dealers to sell cars; it wants them to sell connected cars.
Our Bolt automatically comes with Connected Access for eight years, a feature we didn’t know about until recently. It allows GM to send software updates to our car but also collect data from that car – actions agreed to during OnStar registration.
Our salesperson describes registration as a three-stage process that he goes through every day. He selects yes to sign up customers for OnStar, then yes so customers receive text messages, and then no for the insurance product that GM offers and that monitors how you drive your car. (This may sound similar to Smart Driver, but it’s different.)
He says he does this so often that it becomes automatic — yes, yes, no — and he always opts out of the last one because that oversight would be annoying to the customer.
Ms. Barker, the GM spokeswoman, said dealers are not allowed to sign up customers and the customer must be the one to accept the terms. At my request, she provided a series of screens that dealers are instructed to show customers during the OnStar and Smart Driver registration process. There is a message at the top of each screen: “Customers must personally review and accept (or reject) the terms below. This action is legally binding and cannot be performed by an agent.”
The screen flow was almost exactly as my salesperson described, except for the second screen about receiving messages where he said he always pressed “yes.” That screen isn’t just for receiving messages from the GM; it also chose us to join OnStar Smart Driver.
It’s a screen my husband and I don’t remember seeing – probably because our salesperson filled it out for us as part of his standard procedure.
Update: Friday, April 26, 2 p.m. EST: Jalopnik reached out to General Motors for more information and we received this statement from a spokesperson:
At GM, we believe vehicles are more than just transportation — they’re technology platforms that can enrich customers’ lives. Vehicles are increasingly connected, smart and personalized with features that improve the overall driving experience and safety on every journey. As our technology evolves, we are committed to being transparent in our privacy practices and empowering customers to take control of their data.
Over the past few weeks, we have received feedback from many customers about the OnStar Smart Driver product. Customer trust is our top priority, which is why we have taken a number of decisive actions and are continuing to review our processes:
Stop OnStar Smart Driver: We founded the Smart Driving product to promote safer driving behavior for the benefit of customers who choose to participate. However, we have decided to discontinue Smart Driver on all GM vehicles and cancel registration for all customers. This process will begin in the next few months.
Termination of partnerships with LexisNexis and Verisk: We have terminated our relationships with third-party telecommunications companies, LexisNexis and Verisk. Any data sharing with these companies ends March 20, 2024.
Enhanced privacy controls: We’re working on enhanced privacy controls to achieve greater transparency. At the same time, we are focused on providing customers with vehicle performance management, diagnostics and, most importantly, what is needed to keep them and their vehicles safe.
New leadership: Alisa Bergman will join General Motors as our new Chief Privacy and Fiduciary Officer on April 29, 2024. She joins GM from Fanatics, where she served as Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) and previously held CPO roles at Adobe and Warner Bros. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the IAPP AI Governance Center and the Future of Privacy Forum.
