Is there any hope for something like a Privacy Bill of Rights to ever be passed? I feel like privacy is an inalienable right for all humans and the passage of something like this would be a light speed jump ahead for personal freedom in the new era we find ourselves in. Just because tech enables it doesn’t make this any creepier than someone following behind you in the woods stalking you on your horse 200 years ago.
Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
181–190 of 333 posts
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#182Is there any hope for something like a Privacy Bill of Rights to ever be passed? I feel like privacy is an inalienable right for all humans and the passage of something like this would be a light speed jump ahead for personal freedom in the new era we find ourselves in. Just because tech enables it doesn’t make this any creepier than someone following behind you in the woods stalking you on your horse 200 years ago.
[flagged]
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#183I have been convinced for several years now that insurance companies are likely buying up personal data from many different sources. They seem to be ideal consumers because it'll lead to better outcomes when they can increase rates on those that identify as risky.
The whole point of an insurance business is to insure against unknown and unlikely risks.
If it is insuring known or likely risks, then it becomes a subsidy or wealth transfer (which should be the domain of governments).
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#184When I got my last car, it had a sticker instructing me to press the SOS button to opt out of data collection. The gentleman that answered acted confused when I made the request, taking the stance that he wasn't aware of data collection from the car and maybe I should contact the manufacturer. It was only after I read him the sticker text verbatim that he went into a scripted response and confirmed the opt out. Shady…
If I get a new car I'm just taking the modem out.
If an insurance company can’t find data on you when they expect it, won’t they just charge you the high risk premium?
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#185Topic is previously discussed (163 comments, 2 days ago) off NYT article at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39666976
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#186I‘m a huge fan of s telemetry insurance. I have I personally and it saves me around 300€/year on my cars insurance because I am a very defensive driver. However, this being integrated into the vehicle in an absolutely intransparent way is a huge step up and a really unsettling privacy violation. For this to be ethically viable imho, there need to be a few prerequisites - it’s transparent what has been transmitted - y…
In which country is that?
Sorry for the late answer. But this is for my insurance in Germany, which is extremely expensive because I’m a young driver
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#187> "More specifically, automakers are selling access to the data to Lexis Nexis, which is then crafting “risk scores” insurance companies then use to adjust rates. Usually upward" In an ideal world, such data-harvesting might lead to cheaper prices / a more efficient insurance market - which would make the privacy loss worth considering from a trade-off standpoint, at least in theory. Unfortunately it's instead likely…
> Unfortunately it's instead likely to just lead to higher margins for insurance companies.
Why? Insurance pricing is heavily regulated, and profit margins for insurers have always been very low.
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#188I have been convinced for several years now that insurance companies are likely buying up personal data from many different sources. They seem to be ideal consumers because it'll lead to better outcomes when they can increase rates on those that identify as risky.
This has been true for several years. An insurance agent once told me that there are life insurance companies dropping the requirement for blood draws / medical exams and are just buying prescription records to correlate with financial, educational, and other behavioral data. Edit: changed prescription “data” to “records”
Wouldn’t this violate HIPAA?
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#189I have been convinced for several years now that insurance companies are likely buying up personal data from many different sources. They seem to be ideal consumers because it'll lead to better outcomes when they can increase rates on those that identify as risky.
I knew a guy who worked in Finance. Whenever he would buy alcohol, or cannabis (legal where I lived) he would only pay cash. His concern was that, if his credit card usage data were sold, it could increase his premiums.
Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies
#190I have been convinced for several years now that insurance companies are likely buying up personal data from many different sources. They seem to be ideal consumers because it'll lead to better outcomes when they can increase rates on those that identify as risky.
The whole point of an insurance business is to insure against unknown and unlikely risks. If it is insuring known or likely risks, then it becomes a subsidy or wealth transfer (which should be the domain of governments).
It’s still unknown if someone engaging in risk will end up in costly collisions, or other events. Just because you engage in risk doesn’t mean it will bite you, only that it is more likely to bite you.
Besides why should less risky drivers subsidize riskier drivers?