Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.
Key facts
- What happened: On October 16, 2026, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen sued General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar, claiming they tricked drivers into enrolling in services that collected detailed driving data and then sold that data to brokers who passed it to car insurers.
- The core allegation: The complaint says GM's dealership sign-up process looked mandatory, buried the data sales in more than 50 pages of disclosures, and warned drivers that declining would switch off safety features.
- Scale: According to the complaint, the data came from more than 14 million GM vehicles nationwide. It does not say how many Montanans were affected.
- What Montana wants: A permanent court order, civil fines of up to $10,000 per willful violation, extra fines for violations against vulnerable adults, and deletion of all driving data, including copies held by third parties.
- GM's response: A GM spokesperson said the company is "reviewing the complaint about the Smart Driver program, which was discontinued in 2024."
- Not a class action: This is a state enforcement case. Drivers who want compensation for themselves are tracked in a separate federal class action, described below.
- The case: State of Montana v. General Motors LLC and OnStar LLC, No. DV-25-2026-0000748, Montana First Judicial District Court, Lewis and Clark County.
In this article
- What Montana is alleging
- What driving data GM collected
- How the dealership sign-up worked
- Who bought the data
- What GM and federal regulators have already done
- What the state is asking the court to do
- The separate class action for drivers
- Timeline
- What GM drivers can do now
- What remains unclear
- Frequently asked questions
What Montana is alleging
The 31-page complaint opens with a line that sums up the state's theory. It says GM turned the automobile, "a perennial symbol of American freedom and autonomy," into "Big Brother on wheels."
According to the complaint, starting in 2015 GM installed telematics technology in its vehicles. Telematics is the combination of sensors, software and a cellular connection that lets a car send information about itself back to the manufacturer. GM advertised the technology as improving safety and convenience. Montana says GM also used it to collect "Driving Data," analyze it and sell it.
The state claims the sales followed a pattern. GM sold data to analytics companies. Those companies turned it into a "Driving Score" for each driver using risk factors GM developed. They then sold insurers access to the scores. According to the complaint, insurers used those scores and data to make decisions about customers, "including monthly premium increases, dropped coverage, or coverage denials."
Montana sues under its Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act, which makes "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce" unlawful. These are allegations. GM has not yet answered in court, and no judge has ruled on them.
What driving data GM collected
The complaint lists 36 categories of data. Among them:
- GPS latitude, longitude, elevation and direction
- Current speed and how fast speed changed
- Driver seat belt status
- Hard braking and hard acceleration events
- Ignition on and off times
- Odometer readings and fuel used
- Whether the vehicle went over or under 80 miles per hour
The state says the data brokers used factors that GM defined as signs of "bad" driving. These included late-night driving, seat belt status, sharp turns, hard braking, hard acceleration and driving over 80 miles per hour.
The complaint also says GM sold personal details alongside the driving data in at least one deal, including customer names, home addresses, vehicle identification numbers (VINs) and vehicle make, model and year. That combination, Montana argues, let the broker attach a score to a specific person.
The score could reach insurers you had not chosen yet According to the complaint, insurers that bought access could search the Driving Scores of their "insureds or potential insureds." That means a quote from a new insurer could have been affected, not only renewals with your current one.
How the dealership sign-up worked
Much of the complaint focuses on what happened after a customer finished buying or leasing a car.
According to Montana, a dealership employee would log into GM's onboarding system, enter the car's VIN and set up an OnStar account. The screen told customers to complete the process "before tak[ing] ownership of [their] vehicle." The state says that made the step look required when it was not.
Customers were then shown a 29-page "User Terms for Connected Vehicle Services," an 18-page privacy statement and links to AT&T's terms. The complaint says most people likely saw only the first paragraph of each document and would have had to scroll to read more. Even a customer who read every word, Montana says, would not have learned that GM sold driving data.
If a customer chose "I decline," the complaint says GM showed a warning that declining "will result in deactivation of all services, Including the Automatic Crash Response, Emergency Services and Vehicle Diagnostics." A second screen then told the customer that all services "have been deactivated" and offered a button to "go back to accept OnStar terms." Montana argues those warnings were misleading because the customer was not yet enrolled in anything.
The complaint also says GM paid dealership salespeople bonuses or commissions for enrollments, which "likely resulted in many consumers being enrolled without their knowledge or consent."
Your enrollment may not have felt like a choice If you bought a 2015 or newer GM vehicle and remember tapping through OnStar screens at the dealership, that is the process this lawsuit challenges. The state's case does not depend on whether you remember agreeing.
Who bought the data
The complaint describes four agreements:
- Verisk Analytics, 2015. Montana says GM received an initial multi-million-dollar payment and then ongoing "royalty payments" as Verisk sold insurers licenses to a "Telematics Data Exchange." Over the life of the deal, the complaint says, insurers accessed the Driving Scores of "hundreds of thousands" of GM customers. It also says Verisk signed similar deals with American Honda in 2017 and Hyundai Motor America in 2018.
- Wejo, 2018. A British connected-car startup that, according to the complaint, paid GM a share of its revenue from licensing the data.
- LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 2019. The complaint says LexisNexis built Driving Scores for GM customers, sold insurers access through its own telematics exchange and paid GM a share of the revenue.
- Jacobs Engineering Group, January 3, 2024. The complaint says GM authorized Jacobs to use and license de-identified driving data, meaning data with direct identifiers removed, in exchange for revenue-sharing payments.
Verisk, Wejo, LexisNexis and Jacobs are not defendants in Montana's case.
What GM and federal regulators have already done
In 2024, The New York Times published a series of articles on GM's data sharing. The complaint quotes the Times reporting that GM "confirmed that it shares 'select insights' about hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding over 80 miles per hour and drive time of Smart Driver enrollees" with LexisNexis and Verisk. Shortly afterward, GM said it would stop providing data to both companies and later discontinued its Smart Driver feature, citing "customer trust."
Montana argues that the quick stop shows GM knew the conduct was deceptive. That matters because Montana's civil fines apply to willful violations, which the law defines as conduct the company "knew or should have known" was unlawful.
The Federal Trade Commission, the federal consumer protection agency, also took action. It announced a complaint in January 2025 and finalized an order on January 14, 2026. The FTC said the order:
- bans GM from disclosing consumers' geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years
- requires GM, for 20 years, to get affirmative express consent before collecting, using or sharing connected vehicle data, with exceptions such as location data for emergency responders
- requires GM to let all U.S. consumers request a copy of their data and ask for its deletion
- requires GM to let consumers turn off precise location collection where their vehicle supports it
The FTC order did not require payments to drivers.
What the state is asking the court to do
Montana asks the court to:
- Declare that GM and OnStar violated Montana's consumer protection law
- Permanently bar them from the practices described in the complaint
- Order a civil fine of up to $10,000 for every willful violation proven at trial
- Order an additional fine for every violation against a vulnerable adult
- Order GM to "delete and destroy" all driving data obtained before judgment, including data held by third parties
- Award the state its legal fees and costs
The state demands a jury trial. Any fines would be paid to the State of Montana, not to individual drivers. The court's filing stamp shows the case is assigned to Judge Michael F. McMahon. The state is represented by the Montana Department of Justice and outside counsel from the Washington, D.C., firm Holtzman Vogel.
The separate class action for drivers
Montana's case is not the only lawsuit over GM's driving data. Dozens of private class actions filed after the 2024 Times reporting were combined in federal court in Atlanta as In re: Consumer Vehicle Driving Data Tracking Litigation, MDL No. 3115. An MDL, or multidistrict litigation, gathers similar federal cases before one judge for pretrial work.
Those cases name GM, OnStar, LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk Analytics. On April 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. allowed many claims to proceed, including claims under the federal Wiretap Act and Stored Communications Act and parts of the drivers' privacy and Fair Credit Reporting Act claims, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs. No class has been certified and no settlement has been announced in that case.
If that litigation produces a settlement, eligible drivers would normally be notified and given a way to file a claim.
There is no GM data payment to claim right now Neither the Montana lawsuit nor the FTC order pays drivers. The federal class action is still in litigation. Anyone asking for a fee or your bank details to collect an "OnStar data refund" is not acting for any court.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2015 | GM begins installing OnStar telematics software broadly and signs Verisk deal, per the complaint |
| 2018 | GM signs Wejo agreement, per the complaint |
| 2019 | GM signs LexisNexis agreement, per the complaint |
| January 3, 2024 | GM signs Jacobs agreement, per the complaint |
| 2024 | New York Times reports on GM data sharing; GM ends broker deals and Smart Driver |
| January 2025 | FTC announces complaint against GM and OnStar |
| January 14, 2026 | FTC finalizes order |
| April 22, 2026 | Federal judge lets key claims proceed in driver class action |
| October 16, 2026 | Montana files suit in Lewis and Clark County |
What GM drivers can do now
Ask GM for your data or its deletion. The FTC order requires GM to offer this to all U.S. consumers. GM has said customers can use its U.S. Consumer Privacy Request Form or call 1-866-MYPRIVACY (1-866-697-7482).
Check your consumer reports. Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can request the file a consumer reporting agency keeps on you. LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk, which the federal class action says received GM driving data, are sued there as consumer reporting agencies.
Review your connected services settings. Check the OnStar and brand app settings in your vehicle and phone to see what services are active.
Keep insurance records. If your premium rose or your policy was dropped, keep the notices and any explanation the insurer gave. They could matter if a settlement is reached in the federal case.
Looking for a case you can join today? See our list of class action cases you can join.
What remains unclear
- How many Montanans were affected. The complaint gives a national figure of more than 14 million vehicles but no Montana count.
- How much rates rose. The complaint does not say how much individual premiums increased. Moneywise reported that the Montana Department of Justice did not provide a figure when asked.
- How much GM earned. The complaint describes payments and royalties but does not give totals.
- GM's legal defenses. GM has not filed a response in court. Its spokesperson's statement notes that Smart Driver ended in 2024.
- Whether other states follow. It is unclear whether more attorneys general will sue over the same conduct.
This article is for information only and is not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Montana GM OnStar lawsuit about?
Montana's attorney general claims GM and OnStar used a misleading dealership sign-up process to enroll drivers in connected services, then sold their driving data to brokers who made it available to car insurers. The state sues under its consumer protection law.
What data did GM allegedly sell?
The complaint lists 36 categories, including GPS location, speed, seat belt status, hard braking and acceleration, ignition times, odometer readings and whether the car went over 80 miles per hour. In at least one deal, it says GM also shared names, home addresses and VINs.
Can I get money from the Montana lawsuit?
No. It is a state enforcement case, and any fines would go to the State of Montana. Drivers seeking compensation are part of a separate federal class action, which has not settled.
Is the GM Smart Driver program still running?
No. GM says it discontinued Smart Driver in 2024 and ended its relationships with LexisNexis and Verisk. The Montana complaint covers conduct from 2015 onward.
What did the FTC order require GM to do?
The FTC's January 2026 order bans GM from sharing geolocation and driver behavior data with consumer reporting agencies for five years and requires affirmative consent before collecting or sharing connected vehicle data for 20 years. It also requires data access and deletion options.
How do I ask GM to delete my driving data?
GM says customers can submit its U.S. Consumer Privacy Request Form or call 1-866-697-7482. The FTC order requires GM to offer access and deletion to all U.S. consumers.