Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]
Overall reaction to the Texas v. GM lawsuit
- Many are strongly supportive, hoping other states target GM and other automakers doing similar data sales.
- Some praise Texas for once “being on the right side,” while others highlight perceived hypocrisy given Texas’s broader record on privacy (e.g., medical and library data).
- A minority is skeptical that big settlements meaningfully help victims, seeing them as windfalls for the state rather than systemic fixes.
Legal and policy questions
- Commenters note Texas’ privacy law (TDPSA) appears to require consent for this type of data sharing; others compare it to CCPA/CPRA and GDPR.
- Debate over whether insurers’ use of improperly obtained data should itself be illegal; some argue you should not be allowed to profit from illegally acquired data, others question what specific insurance rules would be violated.
- Several want GDPR-like or HIPAA-like protections, especially for location data, with strong fines or private rights of action and treble damages.
Vehicle telematics, tracking, and user control
- Multiple people report trying to disable cellular or telematics modules via fuses, antennas, or dummy loads; often this breaks other features (hands-free calling, GPS, etc.) or triggers warning lights.
- Some deliberately buy older or simpler cars, or pull data-communication fuses on new ones, to avoid tracking.
- Others like connected features (remote lock/unlock, “find my car”) but only if data isn’t sold; subsequent digging into policies (e.g., Ford) suggests such data is often shared or sold by default with opt-outs buried.
Insurance use of driving data
- One camp argues more granular data makes pricing fairer: unsafe drivers should not be subsidized by safer ones, and high-risk driving should become more expensive.
- Another camp stresses privacy, noisy/biased metrics (hard braking in bad infrastructure), and the social role of insurance as risk-pooling rather than hyper-individual pricing.
- There is extended argument over whether “too efficient” risk segmentation increases uninsured driving, worsens outcomes for poor and rural drivers, and undermines the social safety function of mandatory liability insurance.
Accountability and penalties
- Broad agreement that fines must exceed the profits from illicit data sales; cited figures (cents per car) make GM’s behavior seem especially egregious.
- Many call for personal accountability: jailing executives, clawing back board compensation, even revoking charters, rather than only fining corporations and indirectly harming workers.
- Others warn about over-penalizing to the point that big employers become “too big to punish,” reviving bailout dynamics.
Broader themes
- Strong sense that almost all modern automakers are doing similar tracking; GM is seen as a visible example, not an outlier.
- Some tie the issue to US car dependency: as long as cars are unavoidable, people are effectively coerced into pervasive surveillance.
- There is tension between wanting modern safety/efficiency electronics (ABS, EFI, ECUs) and rejecting always-connected infotainment and data monetization.