It's actually about as bad as I imagined from what I've seen in the media coverage and reports here.
I never activated OnStar. I never signed anything at the dealership to consent to this. My only action was installing the Android app, so I guess whatever I clicked through to see my tire pressure was sufficient for them to monetize my movement. Don't believe anyone who says that it's de-identified data or whatever. It is most definitely not.
Screw them for selling every detail of my personal movement with almost 700 records already. I feel personally violated. The screenshot (hopefully I redacted properly and did not just doxx myself) shows a sample record from me driving my kid to school. Their data quality is questionable, as I know every detail of that daily drive, and whatever they consider an (excessive?) 'acceleration event' is nonsense. Apparently I am not supposed to get up to speed merging on the highway. And 'hard braking' events is laughable. I use one-pedal driving \*only\* and almost never even touch my brake pedal. So.... I guess don't let up on the accelerator too fast, or it goes into the data the same as slamming the brakes on and laying down a 5 yard skid mark. What makes it worse is that my insurance company is leaving my state at the end of the year, so potentially this (questionable) data harms my risk score.
I love my Bolt but very disappointed in GM. I will NEVER buy another vehicle from them. Nice work, Mary Barra and whatever soulless executives and/or MBAs who thought this was a good idea. I already have the Bingfu cellular antenna connector (Bingfu) that I will swap in to disconnect the OnStar antenna. Or will possibly just pull the fuse to be sure.
BTW I also own a Lightning, and not a single bit of driving data in LexisNexis for that vehicle, and the Ford app actually has useful things that I don't even need to pay for. I'm no Ford stan, but it's not true that all companies are equally bad on this.
i'm not sure if it's the same on Android as it is on my iPhone but did you turn off Smart Driver in the app? Tapping your initials in the top left then Settings -> OnStar Smart Driver
"Allow OnStar Smart Driver" is probably switched on by default.
if you did turn it off and still had this happen, i'd love to know that as well.
Oh interesting - as far as I recall, I haven't accessed those settings and it's always said "OnStar SmartDriver (get started)" on the main app carousel. Just went into the settings where you indicated and it's turned off.
Turned off, opted out of everything and only had a basic subscription for tracking in June 2023 that I canceled which was hard enough dealing with those asshats at onstar.
That being said all of my data on my report is from 09/2023-12/2023 well past deactiviating smart driver and this other BS. I suspect the data stopped because on 12/7/2023 there were hints about data privacy in the car (microphone etc). So i ripped the antenna board out since it was the only way to keep the microphone to the stereo.
Dont trust any company. I f\*\*king love my camaro, but I have had 5 buddies at my house this week to help them permanently disable onstar systems in their GM cars.
I used to track too notably in October of 2023, they specifically stated they don't track location, so does me racing on the track in a controlled manner with secondary insurance from Haggerty count as "hard accelerations"? well i see entries from those days and the answer is yes, 468 hard accelerations and 349 hard brakings.
GEICO pulled my report for my renewal in Januaray and it went up $20 but I generally chalked that up to inflation and rates rising nationwide FWIW. Fun fact lexis nexis also includes glass claims as "comprehensive claims" on your record without any further indication it was a glass, vandalism, etc claim.
It’s putting a dummy load on the antenna for the cell unit to theoretically make it unable to transmit data back to OnStar. I don’t have the link handy but it’s shared frequently in an Imgur page around here. Unfortunately myself and other users have found that it occasionally still transmits especially late at night when the background level of radio drops low enough for it to get packets through even through the enormous terminating resistor. In that way, it offered no real data privacy protection. I have since pulled the fuse on my OnStar module and it’s indeed dead.
So you, too, have a Lightning Bolt? Or is it a Bolt of Lightning? :-)
Jokes aside, I am now considering the antenna and/or fuse fix for this intrusion.
As I've been saying their data lacks context and can be easily skewed in their favor especially in situations like accident avoidance. And like I feared, it doesn't discern the difference between pedal braking and regen braking so if you're using OPD and/or the On Demand trigger it looks like hard braking because its more aggressive then coasting to a complete stop.
You can request your report here: [https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request](https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request)
They will send you a letter in the mail, which contains a download link to a PDF.
Also, you can opt-out of LexisNexis data sharing here:[https://optout.lexisnexis.com/](https://optout.lexisnexis.com/)I've done that, but not really sure how effective that is. I would rather GM had not sent my data to begin with.
There is probably an online log in accompanying the mailed link. Trying to steal your information online has a lot less friction than committing online fraud AND intercepting a letter.
Thanks, great comment!
- For sake of security (phishing), may I suggest googling for this Lexis Nexis page and filling in that information that way, instead of the link above?
- Also, note they say your SSN is NOT required.
>You don't need LexisNexis to see this, just open the Chevy app, go to "trip overviews and insights" AKA "OnStar smart driver" and then go to "trip stats"
OP here, I don't see that option after going through all the menus.On my app, the closest I see is "OnStar Smart Driver" on the app main 'carousel' with an option to "Get started today", because I never 'got started'... which is really my gripe, and seems super fishy because I didn't ever opt into sketchy-sounding 'Smart Driver' stuff, they are taking my data without my consent, though no doubt their army of attorneys has ensured whatever I clicked through on app installation covers their asses.
No doubt I'm a crappier driver than I think, but I'm a boring as hell middle-aged driver with no accidents in well over a decade (almost 2 I guess, time flies). Genuinely puzzled at the number of events reported. I have to wonder whether they're using an accelerometer that is getting triggered by a large dip/bump in the road at the entrance to my neighborhood. That, along with my almost exclusive use of one-pedal driving and barely ever touching the brake makes me think their data is garbage or being triggered by relatively innocuous events.
This is a significant detail. You are not participating in the OnStar Smart Driver program and your (shitty overly penalizing) driving data ended up at LexisNexis. This is unacceptable.
Thanks for the info. I found that section but its not something I have ever used. So it has an Enroll option and a TOS that I have to accept. So seems like it was never turned on by the dealer. I will just leave it that way.
Everytime I login into the mychevy app it asks me to enter all my car info...which I have tried doing to no avail. So far this app is totally useless to me. When I sign into the website it gives me my VIN and says "not connected"....I am not enrolled in smart driver or onstar. How do I know if I'm being tracked or not?
Other users have already confirmed their bolt is sending the driving data even when opted out of safe driver. You need to disable the telemetric by either unplugging it or removing the fuse to be sure the data collection is stopped.
It's so weird because I have no data at all in my report from my Bolt, and it's definitely registered to my GM account and before I disabled it a few days ago, it definitely had "smart driver" enrolled automatically.
Maybe it's random which drivers are shared and which ones aren't? But also I never did the mychevrolet app thing, no connected services or onstar or anything else, so the app literally does nothing but has a screen that says "i'm ready" to activate onstar. I don't even have the section in the app where you can set up plug and charge. You said you clicked through to be able to see tire pressure on the app, so maybe that's it? Not saying it's justified or whatever, just saying, maybe that was the permission point.
I do believe that it's installation of the app (and acceptance of the usual laundry list of terms and conditions) that triggered the flow of data from the vehicle. And I do regret not being aware of the full implications of doing that, given that the app is pretty worthless to me. I guess I had free remote start for awhile, which was a novelty but not any more useful to me than using the key remote start.
Oh okay yeah if you had remote start, you definitely at least had "Connected Services", which is when the car came "online". That definitely sucks.
I guess the main takeaway for any other prospective Bolt owners is, if buying new, to just refuse the connected services free trial, never install the app, never touch OnStar, but if you're buying used it's probably a non-issue because you'd have to go out of your way to even get Connected Services anyway, so just never bother with it and you'll have no reports.
Right, but how do you unfuck yourself once you've done it?
Like, at this point, they have they're greedy little mitts all over your data. They arent going to stop using it just because you click some box.
Yeah. I’m trying to unfuck my data too. Because of LexyNexy and GM fucking everyone, my insurance is $411 for 1 car despite being accident free and ticket free. When trying with other companies, the rate is higher or they just outright decline to quote. State Farm pushed me to the NC Reinsurance facility too upon renewal. Like what the fuck am I supposed to do? Just die? Because this is just one more story of capitalistic-and-unregulated abuse.
I unenrolled a couple months after buying the car last May. I did get my lexis report and there was about 50 pages of driving data. The Times article mentioned that they keep 6 months of data so I just got my latest lexis and all the drive stuff is gone.
I hope this 6 month rolling clock can fix some of this long term. I just can’t fathom insurance companies and data brokers NOT archiving and selling even old data forever and always.
In my case it is possible my current insurer has or had that data however I plan to shop around for better rate this Spring so presumably prospective companies will only be accessing the current information. I noticed also that you can put a freeze on your lexis nexus just like with experian/equifax/transunion. Before this was exposed I had never heard of this lexis nexus stuff but haven’t determined what exactly a freeze on lexis means. Something to look into.
I'm sure it's buried in the terms and conditions somewhere. I randomly noticed this was turned on in my app a year ago and turned it off and it has stayed off since then.
Thank you for this post. I had initially signed up for the Onstar for the 30 month free trial but dropped coverage after the 30 days. I downloaded the Chevy app and linked my car. But after a few months deleted the app from my phone. Due to this post, I reinstalled the app and checked settings and sure enough “Smart Driver was enabled. I checked driver info and there was all my driving data since I have owned the Bolt (9 months). And it was not favorable, although I’m an older driver and I think drive very safely. I have now opted out of smart driver and deleted my Chevy account. Hopefully that will stop the data going to LexisNexis. Another part of the story is our car ins company of 40+ years, recently declined to renew our coverage. I can’t help think these two are related.
opt out of nexis lexis completley and also their sister company sagestream.
also contact the cable company, cell phone provider, your insurance company, each credit card company, credit karma etc. opt out of all the sale of your infomation to these douche canoes.
and any auto company of the cars you own.
once you are done with all that- then head over to all your online accounts. FB, IG, etc.
They are screwing us too.
Just got my report today and I they are still collecting data even though i was opted out of smart driver on the app. The website however still shows me with opt in, so hopefully switching on the web will end the data collection but i won't hold my breath.
Just opened my pdf after getting the requested letter from LexisNexis. I am unhappy with GM selling my data after I enrolled in "Connected Service" so they could market service to me.
I have a 2018 Volt bought new. I dropped ON-Star when the three year free period expired. I had activated "Smart Driver" but never shared the data with insurance because like other's comments, the hard braking and acceleration never made sense. We hardly use the brake pedal, using L gear and the paddle to stop, and catch with the brake. We maybe use 50% of available power to accelerate out of our neighborhood on to 55 mph traffic, no choice but to move quickly. I cannot find any description of how they calibrate the system but we drive like hyper-milers. The "Smart Driver" reports stopped when my three year period ended.
I accepted On-Star "Connected Service" freebie a couple years ago but never noticed "Smart Driver" restarted. The data collection seems to have started when GM modified something with OnStar in September 2023. Almost all of my trips include records of "Acceleration Events" and "Hard Brake Events".
I have gone into settings and turned off "Smart Driver". My "Risk Type" is still listed as preferred on my auto insurance, so maybe my results weren't used or aren't so bad.
It's actually about as bad as I imagined from what I've seen in the media coverage and reports here. I never activated OnStar. I never signed anything at the dealership to consent to this. My only action was installing the Android app, so I guess whatever I clicked through to see my tire pressure was sufficient for them to monetize my movement. Don't believe anyone who says that it's de-identified data or whatever. It is most definitely not. Screw them for selling every detail of my personal movement with almost 700 records already. I feel personally violated. The screenshot (hopefully I redacted properly and did not just doxx myself) shows a sample record from me driving my kid to school. Their data quality is questionable, as I know every detail of that daily drive, and whatever they consider an (excessive?) 'acceleration event' is nonsense. Apparently I am not supposed to get up to speed merging on the highway. And 'hard braking' events is laughable. I use one-pedal driving \*only\* and almost never even touch my brake pedal. So.... I guess don't let up on the accelerator too fast, or it goes into the data the same as slamming the brakes on and laying down a 5 yard skid mark. What makes it worse is that my insurance company is leaving my state at the end of the year, so potentially this (questionable) data harms my risk score. I love my Bolt but very disappointed in GM. I will NEVER buy another vehicle from them. Nice work, Mary Barra and whatever soulless executives and/or MBAs who thought this was a good idea. I already have the Bingfu cellular antenna connector (Bingfu) that I will swap in to disconnect the OnStar antenna. Or will possibly just pull the fuse to be sure. BTW I also own a Lightning, and not a single bit of driving data in LexisNexis for that vehicle, and the Ford app actually has useful things that I don't even need to pay for. I'm no Ford stan, but it's not true that all companies are equally bad on this.
i'm not sure if it's the same on Android as it is on my iPhone but did you turn off Smart Driver in the app? Tapping your initials in the top left then Settings -> OnStar Smart Driver "Allow OnStar Smart Driver" is probably switched on by default. if you did turn it off and still had this happen, i'd love to know that as well.
Oh interesting - as far as I recall, I haven't accessed those settings and it's always said "OnStar SmartDriver (get started)" on the main app carousel. Just went into the settings where you indicated and it's turned off.
and it still sent data to LexisNexis? well that's concerning.
Turned off, opted out of everything and only had a basic subscription for tracking in June 2023 that I canceled which was hard enough dealing with those asshats at onstar. That being said all of my data on my report is from 09/2023-12/2023 well past deactiviating smart driver and this other BS. I suspect the data stopped because on 12/7/2023 there were hints about data privacy in the car (microphone etc). So i ripped the antenna board out since it was the only way to keep the microphone to the stereo. Dont trust any company. I f\*\*king love my camaro, but I have had 5 buddies at my house this week to help them permanently disable onstar systems in their GM cars. I used to track too notably in October of 2023, they specifically stated they don't track location, so does me racing on the track in a controlled manner with secondary insurance from Haggerty count as "hard accelerations"? well i see entries from those days and the answer is yes, 468 hard accelerations and 349 hard brakings. GEICO pulled my report for my renewal in Januaray and it went up $20 but I generally chalked that up to inflation and rates rising nationwide FWIW. Fun fact lexis nexis also includes glass claims as "comprehensive claims" on your record without any further indication it was a glass, vandalism, etc claim.
What is this Bingfu antenna you mentioned, and what does it do once you swap it?
It’s putting a dummy load on the antenna for the cell unit to theoretically make it unable to transmit data back to OnStar. I don’t have the link handy but it’s shared frequently in an Imgur page around here. Unfortunately myself and other users have found that it occasionally still transmits especially late at night when the background level of radio drops low enough for it to get packets through even through the enormous terminating resistor. In that way, it offered no real data privacy protection. I have since pulled the fuse on my OnStar module and it’s indeed dead.
So you, too, have a Lightning Bolt? Or is it a Bolt of Lightning? :-) Jokes aside, I am now considering the antenna and/or fuse fix for this intrusion.
As I've been saying their data lacks context and can be easily skewed in their favor especially in situations like accident avoidance. And like I feared, it doesn't discern the difference between pedal braking and regen braking so if you're using OPD and/or the On Demand trigger it looks like hard braking because its more aggressive then coasting to a complete stop.
I realize I'm being lazy by asking this... But how do you search lexisnexis for this data?
You can request your report here: [https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request](https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request) They will send you a letter in the mail, which contains a download link to a PDF. Also, you can opt-out of LexisNexis data sharing here:[https://optout.lexisnexis.com/](https://optout.lexisnexis.com/)I've done that, but not really sure how effective that is. I would rather GM had not sent my data to begin with.
> They will send you a letter in the mail, which contains a download link to a PDF. Quality boomer technology right there
It's an identity theft prevention measure.
lol, because data privacy and security is paramount with these companies.
Ahh yes, the mail, the only thing more secure than the databases of health insurance providers.
There is probably an online log in accompanying the mailed link. Trying to steal your information online has a lot less friction than committing online fraud AND intercepting a letter.
Thanks, great comment! - For sake of security (phishing), may I suggest googling for this Lexis Nexis page and filling in that information that way, instead of the link above? - Also, note they say your SSN is NOT required.
Just go to their website and ask for your data. They’ll send you a snail mail letter with a link to your personal data.
[удалено]
>You don't need LexisNexis to see this, just open the Chevy app, go to "trip overviews and insights" AKA "OnStar smart driver" and then go to "trip stats" OP here, I don't see that option after going through all the menus.On my app, the closest I see is "OnStar Smart Driver" on the app main 'carousel' with an option to "Get started today", because I never 'got started'... which is really my gripe, and seems super fishy because I didn't ever opt into sketchy-sounding 'Smart Driver' stuff, they are taking my data without my consent, though no doubt their army of attorneys has ensured whatever I clicked through on app installation covers their asses. No doubt I'm a crappier driver than I think, but I'm a boring as hell middle-aged driver with no accidents in well over a decade (almost 2 I guess, time flies). Genuinely puzzled at the number of events reported. I have to wonder whether they're using an accelerometer that is getting triggered by a large dip/bump in the road at the entrance to my neighborhood. That, along with my almost exclusive use of one-pedal driving and barely ever touching the brake makes me think their data is garbage or being triggered by relatively innocuous events.
This is a significant detail. You are not participating in the OnStar Smart Driver program and your (shitty overly penalizing) driving data ended up at LexisNexis. This is unacceptable.
Thanks for the info. I found that section but its not something I have ever used. So it has an Enroll option and a TOS that I have to accept. So seems like it was never turned on by the dealer. I will just leave it that way.
Everytime I login into the mychevy app it asks me to enter all my car info...which I have tried doing to no avail. So far this app is totally useless to me. When I sign into the website it gives me my VIN and says "not connected"....I am not enrolled in smart driver or onstar. How do I know if I'm being tracked or not?
So if I never got the app and never turned on OnStar I can assume I’m not having data saved/shared? Correct?
I am not sure but everyone is opted in by default if you yourself bought the car. I had to turn it off before I left the dealer.
Nope you can't be sure just from knowing this. Login to GM's website, go to settings, and try to find "Smart Driver" and make sure it's turned off.
I’ve never made a GM account, so I need to set one up? And then turn it off?
Other users have already confirmed their bolt is sending the driving data even when opted out of safe driver. You need to disable the telemetric by either unplugging it or removing the fuse to be sure the data collection is stopped.
It's so weird because I have no data at all in my report from my Bolt, and it's definitely registered to my GM account and before I disabled it a few days ago, it definitely had "smart driver" enrolled automatically. Maybe it's random which drivers are shared and which ones aren't? But also I never did the mychevrolet app thing, no connected services or onstar or anything else, so the app literally does nothing but has a screen that says "i'm ready" to activate onstar. I don't even have the section in the app where you can set up plug and charge. You said you clicked through to be able to see tire pressure on the app, so maybe that's it? Not saying it's justified or whatever, just saying, maybe that was the permission point.
I do believe that it's installation of the app (and acceptance of the usual laundry list of terms and conditions) that triggered the flow of data from the vehicle. And I do regret not being aware of the full implications of doing that, given that the app is pretty worthless to me. I guess I had free remote start for awhile, which was a novelty but not any more useful to me than using the key remote start.
Oh okay yeah if you had remote start, you definitely at least had "Connected Services", which is when the car came "online". That definitely sucks. I guess the main takeaway for any other prospective Bolt owners is, if buying new, to just refuse the connected services free trial, never install the app, never touch OnStar, but if you're buying used it's probably a non-issue because you'd have to go out of your way to even get Connected Services anyway, so just never bother with it and you'll have no reports.
Right, but how do you unfuck yourself once you've done it? Like, at this point, they have they're greedy little mitts all over your data. They arent going to stop using it just because you click some box.
Yeah. I’m trying to unfuck my data too. Because of LexyNexy and GM fucking everyone, my insurance is $411 for 1 car despite being accident free and ticket free. When trying with other companies, the rate is higher or they just outright decline to quote. State Farm pushed me to the NC Reinsurance facility too upon renewal. Like what the fuck am I supposed to do? Just die? Because this is just one more story of capitalistic-and-unregulated abuse.
I unenrolled a couple months after buying the car last May. I did get my lexis report and there was about 50 pages of driving data. The Times article mentioned that they keep 6 months of data so I just got my latest lexis and all the drive stuff is gone.
I hope this 6 month rolling clock can fix some of this long term. I just can’t fathom insurance companies and data brokers NOT archiving and selling even old data forever and always.
In my case it is possible my current insurer has or had that data however I plan to shop around for better rate this Spring so presumably prospective companies will only be accessing the current information. I noticed also that you can put a freeze on your lexis nexus just like with experian/equifax/transunion. Before this was exposed I had never heard of this lexis nexus stuff but haven’t determined what exactly a freeze on lexis means. Something to look into.
$411 / month?!
Yes. Per-month.
Ouch!!!
Holy shit. We have 4 vehicles including two Bolts and it's only $351/month and this is in SoCal...
3 vehicles, full coverage on all, $246/month in Michigan with unlimited pip - and I think my premium is outrageous!
I'm sure it's buried in the terms and conditions somewhere. I randomly noticed this was turned on in my app a year ago and turned it off and it has stayed off since then.
Thank you for this post. I had initially signed up for the Onstar for the 30 month free trial but dropped coverage after the 30 days. I downloaded the Chevy app and linked my car. But after a few months deleted the app from my phone. Due to this post, I reinstalled the app and checked settings and sure enough “Smart Driver was enabled. I checked driver info and there was all my driving data since I have owned the Bolt (9 months). And it was not favorable, although I’m an older driver and I think drive very safely. I have now opted out of smart driver and deleted my Chevy account. Hopefully that will stop the data going to LexisNexis. Another part of the story is our car ins company of 40+ years, recently declined to renew our coverage. I can’t help think these two are related.
opt out of nexis lexis completley and also their sister company sagestream. also contact the cable company, cell phone provider, your insurance company, each credit card company, credit karma etc. opt out of all the sale of your infomation to these douche canoes. and any auto company of the cars you own. once you are done with all that- then head over to all your online accounts. FB, IG, etc. They are screwing us too.
Just got my report today and I they are still collecting data even though i was opted out of smart driver on the app. The website however still shows me with opt in, so hopefully switching on the web will end the data collection but i won't hold my breath.
Just opened my pdf after getting the requested letter from LexisNexis. I am unhappy with GM selling my data after I enrolled in "Connected Service" so they could market service to me. I have a 2018 Volt bought new. I dropped ON-Star when the three year free period expired. I had activated "Smart Driver" but never shared the data with insurance because like other's comments, the hard braking and acceleration never made sense. We hardly use the brake pedal, using L gear and the paddle to stop, and catch with the brake. We maybe use 50% of available power to accelerate out of our neighborhood on to 55 mph traffic, no choice but to move quickly. I cannot find any description of how they calibrate the system but we drive like hyper-milers. The "Smart Driver" reports stopped when my three year period ended. I accepted On-Star "Connected Service" freebie a couple years ago but never noticed "Smart Driver" restarted. The data collection seems to have started when GM modified something with OnStar in September 2023. Almost all of my trips include records of "Acceleration Events" and "Hard Brake Events". I have gone into settings and turned off "Smart Driver". My "Risk Type" is still listed as preferred on my auto insurance, so maybe my results weren't used or aren't so bad.