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Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

nytimes.com

31–40 of 333 posts

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do companies ignore regulations? Sure, some do. But saying 'they will just pay the fines' ignores the fact that we could make the fines existential, or punish board members by kicking them out of the industry. The answer to 'the regulation we haven't even tried won't work if we do it improperly' is 'let's do it, and do it properly'. I have no idea what homomorphic encryption is, but rarely do 'let's add more tech to…

Homomophic encryption simply means that the data is encrypted in a way that the person working with it cannot use it arbitrarily. Here is an example, I would for instance use Google Maps for Navigation but Google or any other third party would have no idea where I am going. I used it in the first company I worked for and it works beautifully. A) and B) work but they are not as effective as homomophic encryption.

> use Google Maps for Navigation but Google or any other third party would have no idea where I am going

You don’t need homomorphic encryption for this, just local route processing. In the case of car data, the auto companies aren’t doing any useful processing of the data for the user. Homomorphic encryption is irrelevant.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#32
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR for example has done nothing to protect people from this particular case of data misuse. The problem with English law, is that you have to explicitly declare what is wrong a head of time. So we just end up with endless needs for regulation ls. If we had legal systems like Hammurabi Codes, they work work way better.

> GDPR for example has done nothing to protect people from this particular case of data misuse You’re using one badly-written law to discard a category. Why not look at the FDA? When was the last time you were poisoned?

How is GDPR badly written?

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#33
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which specific regulation do you think has a history of not being impactful? I find that the devil is in the detail in this argument because most regulation us massively impactful and helpful and I find that the talking point that we need to get rid of it is generally loudest from those who would profit the most from not following those rules anymore.

GDPR for example has done nothing to protect people from this particular case of data misuse. The problem with English law, is that you have to explicitly declare what is wrong a head of time. So we just end up with endless needs for regulation ls. If we had legal systems like Hammurabi Codes, they work work way better.

You'd be surprised what French data authority (CNIL) has to say about this[1]:

> Any use of personal data for an objective that is incompatible with the primary purpose of proces- sing is a misuse that is subject to administrative or criminal sanctions. > For example, a mechanic cannot sell the vehicle’s technical data to insurers to enable them to infer the driving profiles of their policyholders.

There may be a lack of enforcement, but it seems this type of data may be protected under GDPR.

[1] https://www.cnil.fr/sites/cnil/files/atoms/files/cnil_pack_v...

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough, I know the answer to that, if memory is serving. Homomorphic encryption is where you can compute on the encrypted data without ever decrypting it. Logically, it sounds like a pipe dream to me, but apparently it's a thing.

Why is it a pipe dream I know companies that use it. And it serves their purposes well.

I said it sounds like one, not that it is one. I don't know enough about the implementation of it to comment intelligently, but logically it seems to me that if you can compute on it, then it's likely to leak the data, or at least some metadata about the data.

The truth of the matter may be something other. Life is not always logical.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#35
post #11

The problem with such issues of data misuse is that people only provide 2 solutions. a) Go off grid. Don't use The tech that these cars make. The problem with this is that it is impractical for people that use see alot of value in using this tech. b) Pass more regulation. I am a Hayekian and I believe that regulation will not help with people that know the ins & outs of the regulation, also it's doesn't stop them. It…

Do companies ignore regulations? Sure, some do. But saying 'they will just pay the fines' ignores the fact that we could make the fines existential, or punish board members by kicking them out of the industry. The answer to 'the regulation we haven't even tried won't work if we do it improperly' is 'let's do it, and do it properly'. I have no idea what homomorphic encryption is, but rarely do 'let's add more tech to…

I think a problem in this area is that if one avenue of data collection is denied, another one will be implemented and it becomes a game of whack-a-mole.

For example the USG is forbidden from collecting communications from US citizens, but that does not keep it from buying this information from private domestic sources or from other governments.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR for example has done nothing to protect people from this particular case of data misuse. The problem with English law, is that you have to explicitly declare what is wrong a head of time. So we just end up with endless needs for regulation ls. If we had legal systems like Hammurabi Codes, they work work way better.

> GDPR for example has done nothing to protect people from this particular case of data misuse You’re using one badly-written law to discard a category. Why not look at the FDA? When was the last time you were poisoned?

Poisoning people is accepted as wrong by most people. Monitoring devices so that you can "make them safer" or "save the children" or whichever other BS reason they give is easy to give them a pass on.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough, I know the answer to that, if memory is serving. Homomorphic encryption is where you can compute on the encrypted data without ever decrypting it. Logically, it sounds like a pipe dream to me, but apparently it's a thing.

Why is it a pipe dream I know companies that use it. And it serves their purposes well.

> know companies that use it

We can only do a limited set of operations homomorphically. Moreover, it’s more power intensive than conventional computation. In most cases, local computation is the more effective (and secure) solution.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#38
post #5

The US doesn't just need laws about disclosure of these practices. It needs to mandate that this kind of corporate surveillance must be a clearly labeled opt-in and cannot be mandated by any contract.

Yes, but to me there's another important issue, with all the tracking tech in our vehicles, who actually owns them? We need to treat this similar to the "right to repair" issue! I paid my money, so I own the product. [IF] I own the vehicle it should be my right to say what software runs in the background. Of course the company can say, "If you don't like our product, don't buy it." If I want to keep up with the lates…

> who actually owns them? We need to treat this similar to the "right to repair" issue

Ownership is a bad framework for this issue—it’s too ambiguous. You can “own” a vehicle all you want, that doesn’t give you the right to fuck with its odometer or catalytic converter.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#39
post #13

When 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…

Brand?

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#40
post #11

The problem with such issues of data misuse is that people only provide 2 solutions. a) Go off grid. Don't use The tech that these cars make. The problem with this is that it is impractical for people that use see alot of value in using this tech. b) Pass more regulation. I am a Hayekian and I believe that regulation will not help with people that know the ins & outs of the regulation, also it's doesn't stop them. It…

Since nobody answered the question, the reason is its terribly absolutely insanely slow. It's possible, just requiring hundreds of thousands or millions of times as much work as say, a normal lookup in a database.
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