Yes, insurance companies can track your vehicle, and in many cases they already are. There are two paths this takes: usage-based insurance programs you sign up for in exchange for a discount, and a quieter pipeline where your car’s manufacturer collects driving data through its connected services and sells it to brokers that insurers buy from. If you’re asking whether insurance companies can track your vehicle, the practical question is less about possibility and more about which path applies to you and what you can do about each one.
The Two Ways Insurers Get Your Driving Data
Programs You Opt Into
Usage-based insurance programs are the visible version. You agree to share driving data, and in return you get a potential premium discount. They come in three forms:
- A plug-in dongle that connects to the OBD-II diagnostics port under your dashboard and reads data from the car’s computer.
- A smartphone app that uses your phone’s GPS and accelerometer to detect hard braking, rapid acceleration, speeding, and phone handling behind the wheel.
- Factory-installed telematics in newer cars that can feed data to the insurer’s program without any added hardware or app.
In each case the insurer is supposed to tell you what gets collected and get your agreement before any data moves.
The Pipeline You May Not Know About
The less visible path runs through your car’s manufacturer. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint alleging that General Motors and its OnStar subsidiary collected precise geolocation and driving behavior data from millions of vehicles and sold it to consumer reporting agencies without adequately notifying drivers or obtaining their consent.1Federal Trade Commission. FTC Takes Action Against General Motors for Sharing Drivers’ Precise Location and Driving Behavior Data Without Consent The FTC alleged GM used a misleading enrollment process for its OnStar Smart Driver feature that buried the data-sharing implications.
The data broker in that case, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, turned the raw trip data into risk scores and sold them to insurers for use in underwriting. One driver’s report could cover hundreds of individual trips over six months, including dates, distances, and instances of hard braking, speeding, or sharp acceleration. Premiums were being shaped by data drivers never knowingly shared with an insurer.
The FTC finalized a consent order in January 2026 that bans GM from disclosing driving behavior and geolocation data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. For the full 20-year duration of the order, GM must obtain clear, affirmative consent before collecting, using, or sharing connected-vehicle data, and must let consumers request data deletion and disable geolocation tracking.2Federal Trade Commission. FTC Finalizes Order Settling Allegations That GM and OnStar Collected Sold Geolocation Data Without Consumers Consent GM isn’t the only automaker running connected-vehicle services, so the same pipeline could exist elsewhere.
What Gets Recorded
The specifics vary, but tracking generally captures:
- Mileage, both total and per trip.
- Speed relative to posted limits.
- Braking and acceleration patterns, including hard stops and jackrabbit starts.
- Time of day you drive.
- GPS location of where you drive and park, though some programs exclude this.
- Phone handling while driving, in some smartphone-based programs.
Built-in vehicle telematics tend to capture more because they’re wired directly into the car’s systems. The GM case showed that manufacturer-collected data included precise geolocation for every trip, start and end times, and detailed behavior metrics.1Federal Trade Commission. FTC Takes Action Against General Motors for Sharing Drivers’ Precise Location and Driving Behavior Data Without Consent
How Tracking Shows Up on Your Bill
In a voluntary program, the data directly shapes your premium. Steady speeds, gentle braking, and avoiding late-night trips earn discounts. Low-mileage drivers often see the biggest savings.
Whether bad data can also raise your rate depends on your state. Some states restrict insurers to a discount-only model, so telematics can only lower your premium. Others allow adjustments in both directions, meaning frequent hard braking or heavy nighttime driving can push the rate up. Check your state’s rules before enrolling.
The broker pipeline can affect your rate even if you never joined a program. If your automaker shared your data with a company like LexisNexis before the FTC crackdown, an insurer may have pulled a risk score on you that influenced your quote without your knowledge.
How It Shows Up in Claims
When you file a claim, your insurer may pull telematics records from around the time of the incident. If the data matches your account, it supports your claim and can speed things up. If it doesn’t, expect scrutiny: insurers can compare your reported speed to the log, check whether you were handling your phone, or test whether the impact dynamics match your description.
Insurers also use telematics patterns to flag possible fraud. Repeated hard braking in an area with no traffic, or abrupt deceleration in an odd location before a collision, can trigger a closer look. Honest claimants benefit when the data backs their story; inaccurate claims are easier to challenge.
Your Rights Over the Data
Federal law doesn’t ban this data collection, but it does give you tools.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires insurers to explain their information-sharing practices and safeguard sensitive consumer data.3Federal Trade Commission. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act You should receive a privacy notice when you become a customer and at least annually afterward, describing the categories of personal information collected, the insurer’s sharing policies with affiliates and unaffiliated third parties, and the security measures in place.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6803 – Disclosure of Institution Privacy Policy If your insurer shares data with nonaffiliated third parties beyond certain exceptions, you have the right to opt out.
Fair Credit Reporting Act
When a broker like LexisNexis compiles your driving data into a risk score and sells it to insurers, that broker is acting as a consumer reporting agency. The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to request a copy of any consumer report maintained about you, dispute inaccurate information, and be notified when a report is used in a decision that adversely affects you, such as a higher rate.
State Privacy Laws
Several states have enacted their own privacy laws that go beyond the federal baseline, giving residents the right to request deletion of personal data, opt out of data sales, or limit how sensitive information like precise geolocation is used. What’s available to you depends on where you live, and this area of law is moving quickly.
How to See What’s Been Collected on You
You can ask. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the largest broker in the auto insurance space, lets you request a free consumer disclosure report. Go to consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request, provide your name, address, date of birth, and either your Social Security number or driver’s license number, and submit the request. Instructions for accessing the report online arrive by mail in about 10 days.5LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Order Your Report Online Their Consumer Center is at 1-888-497-0011.
Review it carefully. It may contain trip-level data you didn’t know existed, along with any risk scores built from it. If anything is wrong, the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute it and have it corrected or removed.
How to Shut It Off
If you enrolled in a voluntary telematics program and want out, contact your insurer to unenroll. You lose the discount, but the collection stops. For plug-in devices, unplug the dongle and mail it back.
Stopping your car’s built-in collection takes more work. Most automakers now run privacy portals where you can submit three kinds of requests: opt out of data sharing with third parties, limit the use of sensitive information like geolocation, and request deletion of data already collected. Check your vehicle’s connected-services app for privacy toggles that disable trip recording or location sharing. The steps vary by manufacturer; look for a “Privacy” or “Data Privacy Portal” section on the automaker’s website or in its app.
Under the finalized FTC order, GM specifically must let all U.S. consumers disable geolocation collection and opt out of driving behavior data collection from their vehicles.2Federal Trade Commission. FTC Finalizes Order Settling Allegations That GM and OnStar Collected Sold Geolocation Data Without Consumers Consent Comparable controls at other automakers vary. If yours doesn’t offer an obvious opt-out, send a written privacy request citing your state’s consumer privacy law, and keep a copy of everything.