Penalty Amount
$12,750,000
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with multiple district attorneys and the California Privacy Protection Agency, announced a $12.75 million settlement with General Motors for illegally selling hundreds of thousands of Californians' location and driving data to data brokers Verisk and LexisNexis without notice or consent. The settlement includes the largest CCPA penalty to date, a five-year ban on selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies, and requirements to delete retained data and implement a robust privacy program.
GM must pay $12.75 million in civil penalties, stop selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies for five years, delete driving data within 180 days absent express consent, request data brokers delete the data, develop a robust privacy program, and report privacy assessments to DOJ, district attorneys, and CalPrivacy.
In-house legal teams should review vendor agreements with data brokers and analytics providers to ensure explicit consent and notice requirements are met before sharing consumer data. Key clauses to examine include data processing agreements, data sharing provisions, opt-out mechanisms, and data retention policies. Additionally, customer-facing privacy policies and terms of service should be audited to ensure they accurately describe data collection, use, and sharing practices, particularly for connected vehicle services like OnStar. Employee and customer contracts should include clear consent language for any secondary use of data beyond the original service purpose.
Entity
General Motors
Industry
Automotive"General Motors"
"$12.75 million"
"California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)"
"California’s Unfair Competition Law"
"sold the names, contact information, geolocation data, and driving behavior data of hundreds of thousands of Californians to two data brokers"
"GM failed to give consumers any notice of the sales"
$12.8M
CalPrivacy and the California Attorney General secured a $12.75 million settlement from General Motors for data sharing practices from connected vehicles. The settlement includes injunctive terms to change business practices.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against General Motors for unlawfully collecting private driving data from over 1.5 million Texas drivers without consent and selling the data to third parties including insurance companies. GM allegedly deceived customers into enrolling in products like OnStar Smart Driver by falsely claiming enrollment was required to retain vehicle safety features, while concealing that enrollment authorized systematic collection and sale of detailed driving data. The action follows an investigation launched in June 2024 as part of the Texas AG’s data privacy initiative, and seeks to hold GM accountable for violating state privacy laws.
The California Privacy Protection Agency announced that the California State Legislature approved the Expanding Privacy Rights Act (SB 923), which expands the CCPA's right to delete to cover all non-exempt personal information a business holds about a consumer, including data originally collected from third parties. The bill also requires online-only businesses with a direct relationship to consumers to provide online methods, such as webforms, for submitting access, deletion, and correction requests, and expressly permits businesses to retain suppression lists so deleted information stays deleted. The bill, authored by Senator Becker and sponsored by CalPrivacy, now goes to the Governor for consideration.
A bipartisan coalition of 33 state attorneys general, led by Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, began trial against Meta Platforms, Inc., alleging the company knowingly designed and deployed harmful features on Facebook and Instagram that drive children and teens to use the platforms compulsively, while falsely assuring parents and the public that its platforms were safe for young users. The states also allege Meta illegally collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent, violating COPPA. The trial opened before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, with the states seeking monetary penalties and injunctive relief.
A coalition of 12 state attorneys general, led by Colorado AG Phil Weiser, obtained a temporary restraining order from a federal court in California to halt the proposed $110 billion merger of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. by Paramount Skydance Corporation. The lawsuit alleges the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act by substantially lessening competition in film distribution, anticipated blockbuster film distribution, and licensing cable TV channels.
The California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy) joined a coalition of 18 Attorneys General and state agencies in opposing the proposed SECURE Data Act, a federal privacy bill that would preempt stronger state privacy laws like the CCPA. The coalition argues the bill would weaken consumer privacy protections, limit enforcement remedies, and undermine California's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP).