HARTFORD, Conn. — General Motors will pay $220 million to settle allegations that it sold drivers' private driving and location data to third parties, including data brokers that resold it to insurance companies, a coalition of 36 attorneys general said Thursday.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who helped lead the coalition, said the state will receive more than $6 million. His office said Connecticut began investigating GM and issued an initial notice of violation in 2024, among the first actions under the then-new Connecticut Data Privacy Act. The settlement requires GM to get consumers' express consent before collecting or sharing their driving and location data.

From 2016 to 2024, GM enrolled millions of drivers in its Smart Driver program, which tracked driving habits, and told them their data would not be shared with insurers without express consent, according to the attorneys general. They said GM instead sold the data, including how often a person drove, when trips started and ended, how often drivers braked or accelerated hard and whether they exceeded the speed limit, to data brokers who sold it to insurers. Insurers in some cases used it to raise premiums, the office said. GM ended the program after The New York Times reported on the practice.

The attorneys general said the conduct affected more than 10,283,000 Americans, including at least 123,143 Connecticut residents. Most drivers signed up at dealerships, where employees in many cases allegedly accepted terms on customers' behalf without their consent, the office said. It said GM's OnStar app wrongly told more than 370,000 drivers they were not enrolled in Smart Driver when they were.

The settlement also requires GM to limit the data it collects, adopt a data privacy program with internal and external assessments, and train dealership staff. Washington and Oregon co-led the case. Vermont served on its executive committee, and Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire joined. The Federal Trade Commission settled with GM on Jan. 16, 2025, without a monetary payment. Several consumer class actions against GM remain pending.

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