GM Car Buyers’ Nightmare: The Unveiling of a Program Raising Insurance Rates

It is believed that auto manufacturers are selling millions of pieces of data to the insurance industry about the driving behaviours of their customers. It is my responsibility to report the story about GM sharing driving data from connected vehicles with third parties after they were not informed about the tracking. This led to some insurance companies charging more premiums to some of the affected drivers in the case of General Motors. 

In a nutshell, Kashmir Hill of the New York Times broke the news that General Motors had been selling driving records on specific drivers and specific trips to LexisNexis and Verisk, two companies that assist insurance companies in determining risk levels in the automotive sector. A GM program called Smart Driver+, which GM describes as a driving gamification program that helps improve one’s driving skills, was enrolled by the drivers. 

Smart Driver+ is used by the insurance industry to detect drivers who are hard braking, hard accelerating, swerving, and speeding. Insurers use this data to raise the rates of their insured based on these incidents. Two weeks before the first article in the New York Times ran, and two weeks after it was published, GM said it was cutting ties with LexisNexis, because “customer trust is a priority for us, and companies are actively evaluating our privacy policies and processes.” 

A lawsuit had already been filed by a

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