To find out how it happened, I called our dealership, a franchise of General Motors, and talked to the salesman who had sold us the car. He confirmed that he had enrolled us for OnStar, noting that his pay is docked if he fails to do so. He said that was a mandate from G.M., which sends the dealership a report card each month tracking the percentage of sign-ups.

G.M. doesn’t just want dealers selling cars; it wants them selling connected cars.

Our Bolt automatically came with eight years of Connected Access, a feature we didn’t know about until recently. It allows G.M. to send software updates to our car but also to collect data from it — actions consented to during OnStar enrollment. //

What I can say is that, regardless of who pushed the consent button, this screen about enrolling in notifications and Smart Driver doesn’t say anything about risk-profiling or insurance companies. It doesn’t even hint at the possibility that anyone but G.M. and the driver gets the data collected about how and where the vehicle is operated, which it says will be used to “improve your ownership experience” and help with “driving improvement.” //

A new car, like mine, has hundreds of sensors, the former employee said, so even just a 15-minute trip creates millions of data points, including GPS location — all of which is broadcast in near real time to G.M. He expressed concerns about the insurance industry’s use of this data because it lacked context about the situation that might have led a driver to slam on the brakes or swerve out of a lane. //