Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you • Hacker News Board

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#101

Post by trustmeimdrunk » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

Eyght wrote: post #9

I feel like the Chinese style social score system won't have enough support in government for most countries, but we'll receive a decentralized version anyway through corporate overreach. Also, it's always amusing to arrive at an article about data collection and be greeted by this: https://i.imgur.com/d4Z4sdd.png

last i checked data collection from western-block companies is pretty centralized. Extensive records of your online behavior are being used (hence the money being made in it's collection and sale) by HR dpt, insurance companies, and loan desks to determine whether you qualify for a top tier salary for the same work, affordable coverage, and approval for a loan.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#102

Post by goatinaboat » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #27

gmantg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to disclose anything: plausible deniability is enough. And "bias" can be fixed by ad-hoc quotas.

Why wouldn't an HR person or hiring staffer immediately out the company or even sue them?

Why wouldn't an HR person or hiring staffer immediately out the company or even sue them?

Why would they? HR is not your friend.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#103

Post by trustmeimdrunk » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

HR arguably has the most immediate potential gain, and from its new policies those in the employee pool have the most to lose.

There's a lot of use in applying insurance analysis techniques to filter out bad hires much better than conventional practices. Instead of interviews, vetting, tests, headhunters, you can adopt the latest in data analysis to cut costs and improve your KPIs across the board.

Predict an employee's productivity by analyzing online browsing behavior. Fixed qualities like attention span and drift; escapism and procrastination; pleasure-seeking vs productive, curious, prosocial browsing habits. How do these overlap in a typical workday? Are you focused or dispersed? Does your attention cycle? Do you complete tasks to the end, what happens when you get stuck on a problem?

This doesnt even get into friendship networks, purchasing behavior, public displays of attitudes.

Can you game the system? Probably not. These days that requires you to play a losing game of tweaking your personality down to the smallest meticulous detail. Essentially going against the grain of your natural flow ordering all aspects of your identity to suit an opaque and almost certainly fault-laden.

People flip out about the Chinese social score, without realizing that it was pioneered in the US private-sector.

Say no to mandatory medical intervention.

Written from my Android 2.2

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#104

Post by lmkg » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

icedistilled wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's already standard practice (All states except CA) to use credit score in things like pricing your auto insurance. It's only a tiny leap to incorporate a similar magic number some company comes up with. Actually due to competition, if it correlates to risk, all companies will literally be forced to use the magic numbers or go into an adverse selection death spiral. Unless there is regulation against it, li…

I wonder at which point it becomes a self-fulfilling property - at which point decisions based on data-driven pigeonholing actually lock people on the paths "discovered" in the numbers? E.g. if a young adult gets classified as "disorderly, drunk, unsuitable for reproduction, suitable only for low-skill work" based on their history of college partying, and then consequently denied work and social opportunities (as eve…

Read Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. The book explores several ways that's already happening. Her main premise is that there's a feedback loop in many data-driven policies. You only get success results for the things that you try, and you only try the things you already think are likely to receive. As a result, algorithmic policies tend to reinforce the status quo.

Loan risk algorithms will favor people "similar to" those who have paid back loans before, a sample group biased towards people that banks have already loaned to before. As a result, a lot of the factors are biased towards "from a white upper-middle-class suburban background."

And recidivism estimators, which are used as jail sentencing guidelines in some places.

Screening algorithms for job resumes, and college applications.

Algorithms send police to where crimes are reported. Crimes are reported because the police are there to witness them. The area gets designated a high-crime area. Regular people are arrested more often because regular activity is suspicious in a high-crime area, affecting their future prospects. The higher arrest rate is used to justify this.

It's a continuous spectrum rather than a single point. But if I were to pick a single "point" where it became a self-fulling prophecy? 1994, due to the widespread passage of three-strikes laws.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#105

Post by annoyingnoob » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #94

annoyingnoob wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic. The same person was behind me for miles. He was looking at his phone and ran into me - totally and completely not my fault. He refused to give me his insurance info. I made a claim against my own insurance. I'm pretty sure the insurance company went after him and recovered costs. How exactly should that influence my rates? This is exactly why I pay for insurance, service I alr…

> my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow All it takes is for you to misjudge the conditions one time (are you claiming to be infallible?), or for another road user to do something you were unable to anticipate, and suddenly this driving habit of yours does contribute to a higher risk of an incident that results in a claim. (Even if the incident still isn't considered to…

You cannot know the limits of your vehicle and yourself, and operate safely within those limits if you do not know what those limits are. My driving style contributes to safer driving because I know when I might exceed the limits. As I mentioned, I adjust my driving style for conditions. If my driving was so egregious I would have a driving record.

Giving the insurance company more ways to judge me only enables them to charge me more, without my actual level of risk changing at all.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#106

Post by inetknght » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

justanotherc wrote: post #28

Karunamon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people wind up worried about the wrong thing on these systems. The worst case scenario, where some all-knowing system negatively impacts you because it's rating your behavior on some opaque scale, isn't the one we should be worried about. That by itself is scary enough, but the much more likely case is the one where this system is rating you based on wrong information , and given Finagle's law.. Especial…

The justice system has built into it the requirement to justify allegations against you though. By design everything in the justice system is transparent or its not admissible. So an opaque "score" of any sort wouldn't ever be acceptable evidence.

> By design everything in the justice system is transparent or its not admissible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#107

Post by erikerikson » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

harlanji wrote: post #63

Spooky23 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already happening. Georgia had a anti-opioid program where they could score every pregnant woman in the state for likelihood to become dependent on opioids during pregnancy. Babies born with addiction cost the state about $1M each. There were a few similar programs a few years ago when federal grants were made available. Iirc, they were modeled on the stuff built to identify people vulnerable to becoming extremi…

As a healthy homeless former professional working as a grocery bagger now, I can feel management watching me for signs of drug abuse to explain my ratty clothes and spotty hygeine. Nobody can guess why I’m not working a good job but seem very smart and thorough (slander from boss destroyed reputation). I’m glad to have a job and sorry to show up looking trashy, but it’s the best I can do right now. I am just thankful…

Glad you're doing what sounds to be healthier.

I suspect many think differently here but I don't think the problem lies in the knowledge but in how people with power are currently using the knowledge. Restricting the knowledge is simply or current best mitigation of the current conventions. Another world might use that knowledge to better support you and others who have seen hard times and restore what sounds like a lack of justice and help you find an environment where you could thrive and perhaps even that boss of yours. [edit: so that they could thrive but also have reduced negative impact]

In other words, rather than focusing on mitigating risk a sufficiently high quality system could help us maximize our lives. Unfortunately, the probability of something so pro-social being the outcome seems low.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#108

Post by njarboe » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #98

cactus2093 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The credit system in the US is already a pretty horrific version of this, and nobody really seems to care and it’s been like this for decades. And it’s not even just used for credit anymore, renting an apartment now usually requires a credit check. I had thought credit karma and similar services were at least adding transparency to the industry but was recently in for a rude awakening when trying to get preapproval f…

> You can check your credit report for free, as required by law, but nobody is required to tell you your credit score. You can also basically just pay to remove many things from your credit report. There is no “the credit score”. Any lender is free to use whatever scoring algorithm they like. And they do. Some lenders may choose to use certain scores for certain things, but underwriting has no obligation to use one s…

Credit reporting agencies and financial institutions commit fraud all the time. They call it identity theft so that you think it is your fault instead of their fault. No one would care about a bank giving a loan to a person that was impersonating them except for the fact that the bank (credit card, mattress store, car dealership, etc) commits fraud and reports to the credit agency that you have defaulted on your loan when you have not. Then the credit reporting agency also commits fraud when they sell this false and damaging information to others.

This is the big lie. That "identity theft" should be the problem of the person who was impersonated. Pass laws that heavily fine entities that give false information to credit bureaus and fine credit bureaus who give out false information. "Identity theft" would no longer be something that people would worry about.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#109

Post by kofejnik » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #82

joejerryronnie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My car insurance company would sure love to put a tracker in my car but there is no way in hell that is going to happen. If you take your cell phone in the car with you, they are already tracking you.

How so? My insurance company offers programs with apps or use of telematics. I don't use any apps and don't allow access to any telematics. After the location data scandal last year my cell phone company claims to have stopped selling location data. I don't knowing allow any access to my location data.

A modern car very likely already has a built in gsm module and possibly gps as well. If so, this data is collected and could be subpoenaed by whoever

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#110

Post by jacques_chester » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

icedistilled wrote: post #39

Eyght wrote: post #9

I feel like the Chinese style social score system won't have enough support in government for most countries, but we'll receive a decentralized version anyway through corporate overreach. Also, it's always amusing to arrive at an article about data collection and be greeted by this: https://i.imgur.com/d4Z4sdd.png

I mean, it's already standard practice (All states except CA) to use credit score in things like pricing your auto insurance. It's only a tiny leap to incorporate a similar magic number some company comes up with. Actually due to competition, if it correlates to risk, all companies will literally be forced to use the magic numbers or go into an adverse selection death spiral. Unless there is regulation against it, li…

> Actually due to competition, if it correlates to risk, all companies will literally be forced to use the magic numbers or go into an adverse selection death spiral.

To expand on this: adverse selection is where a consumer has hidden information about the cost they can inflict on a provider. Usually this is talked about in terms of insurance (especially health insurance), but risk is risk and so the principles are the same.

My recollection of what economists predict is that there are two stable equilibria that achieve Pareto efficiency. The first is that discrimination (in the general yes/no sense) is completely forbidden and risks are totally pooled. The second is that complete discrimination is possible without limitation.

The worst outcomes are all found in attempted compromises. Not only do you have the costs of whatever tradeoff you chose between pooling and discrimination being less efficient than the Pareto points, but you also introduce a great deal of dead weight due to complex regulation and oversight, plus efforts made to evade regulation and oversight. Collectively we are worse off, even if individuals think otherwise.

I don't think allowing total discrimination is a viable option in this day and age. Which means banning it wholesale and encouraging the formation of universal risk pools.