Hawai‘i is set to receive a $2.8 million slice of a $220 million multi-state settlement with General Motors.
Hawai‘i was one of 35 states which, along with the District of Columbia, sued the auto manufacturer over allegations that GM’s “Smart Driver” program gathered drivers’ behavior and location data and sold it to insurance companies without the drivers’ consent. The suit was co-led by attorneys general in Washington and Oregon, and was filed in a Washington state superior court.
According to the complaint, the Smart Driver program was launched in 2015 under GM’s subsidiary company OnStar, with the stated purpose of helping drivers improve their own driving safety by recording their driving habits. The program collected precise geolocation data from each driver every three seconds.
But throughout the program’s lifespan, GM allowed third-party entities to license the program’s driver data, which was being used to set drivers’ insurance rates without their knowledge. Some drivers reportedly saw their insurance rates unexpectedly rise before the entire program was scrapped in 2024.
The Hawai‘i Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs claims that most customers who signed up for the Smart Driver program did so at the dealership, with sales employees highly incentivized by GM to promote the program.
However, several customers were reportedly enrolled in the program without their knowledge: at one point, a software glitch caused OnStar to inform more than 370,000 drivers that they were not enrolled in the program even though they actually were, with GM continuing to collect their data. According to the lawsuit, GM never informed those affected drivers about the error, and merely unenrolled them from the program.
All of this, the lawsuit argued, constituted unfair or deceptive conduct that violated the Consumer Protection Act.
As part of the $220 million settlement announced Thursday — of which Hawai‘i will receive $2,861,340 — GM is now required to limit what data it collects from consumers and must establish a privacy program that strictly governs how that data can be used. For example, all consumers must be explicitly told what data is being collected and for what purpose, and GM must provide clear opportunities for consumers to explicitly consent to have their data collected.
As for the money, DCCA Communications Officer William Nhieu told Aloha State Daily that the $2.8 million will go into the department’s Compliance Resolution Fund, where it will be used “for continued protection initiatives on behalf of the state and its residents.”
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