Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

> 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.

In an ideal world (read: perfect information knowledge), this would lead to insurance being a bad deal for every consumer of it. In the theoretical position where insurance companies can accurately price each individual customer based on their habits, they will charge them exactly what they cost _plus_ a margin.

This is only useful for a consumer if they cannot access cash or a credit line to pay for a sudden large expense. Instead, insurance effectively becomes paying the credit line ahead of time.

If there's enough data to suggest that with a high degree of probability people using their cell phones in certain ways while operating a vehicle causes damages then yeah, there should be a market for that. I'm not saying there shouldn't be legislation that limits which types of data can be shared, but certainly if there's useful information that has a market that leads to better safety and lower insurance prices, then I'm all for it.

I completely agree.

My example is NOT about "self identified" "experts", but REAL experts who ACTUALLY have the skills. They also are typically very safe on the roads and know that race-like on-the-limit driving on the streets is idiocy.

The point is that people who ACTUALLY have these skills have a far wider margin of safety than the ordinary driver, and far better capability to avoid accidents. But, they will also — with that far wider margin of safety — often turn or brake with higher than ordinary G-forces.

For example, ordinary street tires and suspensions on modern cars can handle 0.9G lateral or braking acceleration. Ordinary people get uncomfortable at 0.2G lateral acceleration.

An unskilled driver approaching 0.25G lateral acceleration does risk exceeding adhesion limits and losing control because they are insensitive to inputs and feedback. In contrast, a skilled driver can turn at 0.25G all day with virtually no risk, as they are accustomed to driving at 3-4 times those Gs, and are situationally aware, sensitive to inputs and feedback, and choose lines and inputs that avoid the limit.

They are far less of a risk than an unskilled driver at 0.1G. Yet, the skilled driver will get flagged as "bad".

With deeper understanding and analysis, they could make the distinction between actual expert drivers vs overconfident idiots. But I see no indication that this will happen.

It is a condition of getting your license that you will consent in that event, at least in the US. [1] It would be interesting if someone who was driving illegally without a license could get away with not consenting to a breathalyzer.

[1]: https://www.baronedefensefirm.com/breathalyzer-refusal-and-i... (for instance)

When I worked in car insurance, besides our own telemetry, we got at least

- Willis Towers Watson (WTW) aggregated driving data

- Verisk (afaik this was mostly around vehicles, not people)

- Various reports directly from state governments

- LexisNexus (multiple different report types)

Really any mobile app that has accelerometer or gyroscope access (even without GPS) can estimate driving safety. Using phone movement and angle, you can estimate driver vs passenger.

Cambridge Mobile sells equipment a lot of insurers use and afaik also data

The magic keyword to look for is "telematics"