People Are Slowly Realizing Their Auto Insurance Rates Are Skyrocketing Because Their Car Is Covertly Spying On Them
www.techdirt.comLast month the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill published a major story on how GM collects driver behavior data then sells access (through LexisNexis) to insurance companies, which will then jack…
You must log in or register to comment.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
- 0 users online
- 57 users / day
- 383 users / week
- 1.5K users / month
- 5.7K users / 6 months
- 1 subscriber
- 2.96K Posts
- 74.6K Comments
- Modlog
I just don’t understand how car manufacturers can do this. We need better privacy laws. Also, why is it a game of always protesting and backlash just to keep our basic rights? Smh
It makes them more money. And most of their customers couldn’t even explain how their engine works. And if the customer had an actual choice they would have purchased a more expensive car without this tracking.
deleted
So they’ll lower rates if the data shows safe driving right? Right?
Maybe the insurance cooperatives might. And then the private ones might alter strategies to compete.
It’s a group thing. Because everyone around you are collectively driving like assholes, your rate goes up to compensate
False
Here’s a “funny” story. Back in the day I was working (IT) for insurance companies. I’ve pitched an idea to one of the larges companies about a device connected to an OBD port to track a driver’s habits and adjust premiums based on that. I was turned down, but I heard from an unofficial source that the company was already testing such a device. That was 15 years ago.
Privacy regulations? They don’t know how to handle all the data? They realized they’d have to triple rates based on the actual data they were receiving?
Seat have me a OBD device as a “gift” for my new vehicle back in 2021, and supervised me installing their app. The car has an option to opt out of sending data to SEAT via my phone too. Totally not sketchy.
Imagine sharing this anecdote with no shame.
I hope you step in water while wearing socks.
So you were the “horse armor DLC” of car insurance companies. Congratulations
All your anecdote tells me is that you have questionable ethics.
It’s rude to judge a person on the basis of a vague description of an idea. My idea was to collect the driver’s data (harsh breaking, rapid acceleration, previous history, etc.) and set the premiums accordingly. Someone who drove carefully would pay less and someone who drove recklessly would pay more. Keep in mind, this was back when Google was still a “don’t be evil” company and it was before the days of surveillance capitalism.
If Google existed, surveillance capitalism did as well. It’s what they were founded on, they just had good PR back then
So you were an innovator in surveillance capitalism. I think that might be why the person you replied to said you have questionable ethics. I share this opinion.
My vehicle is not trackable but my insurance tripled in two years so there is more going on than data harvesting
Your phone isn’t trackable? You avoided all the license plate scanners? Your work/home has a higher rate of accidents between them?
“Cost of living”. Sure people will start getting inflation beating payrises soon.
Cost of living for the shareholders.
Everyone should just become a shareholder, we will all be rich then…
You can be. Probably pretty cheaply. The problem is that there’s shareholders like you and I, then there’s Shareholders that make millions with a point or two tick up in stock value. The latter are the ones I’m referring to. You and I owning tens or a few hundred shares don’t rate.
Mine nearly doubled over 2 years. They cited increased costs of parts and repair work. Might be true, might not be. Might be they increased prices more than their costs did.
Your car might not be trackable but do you use Google maps or Waze?
A lot more than i used to. I imagine there are hundreds of ways the public has layed themselves open for exploitation
The article alleges, though without evidence, that the tracking is just an excuse to raise rates.
A quick search didn’t turn up quite the right statistics, but traffic fatalities have been seriously on the rise in the US. That probably implies higher payouts. (WP)
But also, when trackable unsafe drivers have to pay more (and trackable safe driver less), then the unsafe drivers will prefer to be untrackable. You may be on the receiving end of the recalculated actuary tables.
Untrackable might mean you get lumped with the worst actuary table in terms of risk as an unknown quantity or as a form of pressure to let them track you or as a way to create a defence moat of people (your rates will go up like these untrackable vehicles) if the government tries to intervene to stop them from basing rates to tracking.
I’m driving way safer and way less miles, combination of shorter commute and I don’t want to wear my truck out driving like an ass…I’m my rate is literally doubled
In a civilized world, heads would roll over this.
It used to be that when someone used the phrase “in a civilized world”, it was intended to move you back into it. Nowadays it just feels like wild gesticulating at an impossible state…
It is a civilized world. All autonomous worker drones are using 94% of cognitive resources just justifying maintenance resources. And the ones who accidentally got better CPUs are too small in population to matter.
maybe there is a way to disable the mobile module in these vehicles?
That’s ok. Most won’t do so. And if you have a “malfunctioning” module, then you probably aren’t maintaining your car properly, so rates will have to be adjusted accordingly.
No data means you get the highest rates.
You can’t solve systemic problems without regulations.
OK but why is my state mandated minimum insurance nearly $90 a month for a Toyota Prius that I only drive like 30 miles per week?
My liability only plan was $55 in 2018.
I’m over 30 years old with no tickets or accidents on my record.
Maybe the whole data farming thing is being used as an excuse also, but this is bullshit all up and down.
I have never driven a car that tracks me, and I pay approx $50 a month for two cars.
My car is seven years older than me and basic traffic insurance is ~300€ (equivalent) per year.
How long you been with your current insurer?
I have been with mine 30 years. Still getting reamed
Sooo… shop around? Existing customers who show indication that they will leave are prime candidates for reaming.
Oh i did. Everyone else is actually higher priced. Not kidding its insane. We are being made to pay for everyone else’s habits. How a shared pool works i guess
Have you considered one of the alternative brokers which offer pay as you go liability coverage?
One example: https://www.withhugo.com/
I tried liberty, root, and allstate. They all wanted more than 800 a year for liability. Walked away from them and stuck with progressive as i have been with them for 30 years and liability with hem for is 600 due to my longevity. Comp&coll is what i had up til last year when they jacked it up from 699 to 2150.
Lol my 18 yo kid pays less.
You’re just stupid and getting screwed. Shop around there Barney
Mr PoopyButthole lives in a state with a mandated minimum price. Can’t you read?
I doubt it’s the price that’s mandated, they probably mean the state mandated minimum coverage.
Yes you are likely correct. It is I who cannot comprehend.
us insurance always sounded like a scam.
moreso now.
Wait, is this why my insurance is suddenly so low? Does it go both ways? People always call me a “boring” driver. As far as I’m concerned, driving on the open road shouldn’t be “fun”, it should be taken seriously. There are places you can go to drive for fun at no one else’s expense.
Can’t wait till all the genealogy companies like 23 & me start selling our genetic information to insurance companies.
It creeped me how many youtube channels I watched suddenly started pushing it.
Fwiw they’re just collecting a paycheck. Sure it’s scummy for them to not reject the businesses offering them the money but tbh I really don’t blame them - I’d probably take the cash too.
Depending on the channel size sponsored ad reads can deliver upwards of multiple thousand per video for the creator. If you see multiple channels with the same ads, it’s bc the company advertising got a big budget approved, that’s it.
Imo just skip the ad reads (or get sponsorblock) and forget they exist. Usually the creator doesn’t even give a fuck who’s paying them or why. They are victims of the system too, not maliciously peddling garbage. I do wish they didn’t have to peddle anything, but here we are.
https://gizmodo.com/23andme-is-selling-your-data-but-not-how-you-think-1794340474
https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/23andme-sells-anonymous-dna-data-to-drug-company-for-20-million/article_ea59fe96-79df-11ee-8473-47193d62656b.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/23andme-will-give-gsk-access-to-consumer-dna-data
https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/377206-23andme-accused-of-having-fire-sale-of-customer-dna-data
The usual warnings about “anonymized data” and “data aggregation” apply.
… you think they don’t? You need to read the fine print again. It’s not proven where it’s going, but they absolutely have the right to sell your genetic information and already do.
Yup… Your family has genes showing a history of heart problems? That’s gonna costa ya!
Makes me glad my, going on 17 year old Toyota will likely run forever and is as dumb as a box of rocks regarding this stuff.
As someone who daily drives a 20 year old Toyota, I couldn’t agree more.
I no longer have to daily drive mine so as I said I hope it lasts a LONG time!
This is exactly what was predicted as the result of corporate surveillance and targeted ads. They are part of schemes to extract more revenue from you. Another example is the rising premium for health insurance. But people apparently had “nothing to hide”!
Ugh. That reminds me of a time probably around 2012. I was working for a pretty large company, and they had our health insurance provider come in. The insurance provider was offering $100 to any employees that came in and gave a sample of blood. This was not a blood drive, they wanted samples. There was a line going down the hallway of people excited to get a benjamin. I encouraged them to get off the line because they were just going to use the data from the blood tests to raise our rates. Everybody laughed at me.
Couple months later all of our insurance rates got jacked up. Like how did people not see what was going on? Did they really think the insurance company was there to give away free money and not somehow turn a profit? Fucking bananas.
Would anything have prevented an increase in rates? I’d bet if everyone got out of line, the rate increases would have been the same or higher. The only difference would be no one received $100.
Mine tried to get me to plug in a monitoring device into our cars’ OBD-II ports after we signed up. I said Hell Naw and returned them shits to the sender. They said my rates would go up if I didn’t use it and they didn’t really change.
Next car I get will have to be neutered of such spyware, since they’re apparently building it all in now. Current car just had a box I unplugged to disable the 3G cellular network connectivity and the car works just fine without it.
We lowkey need a database of how to airgap cars. Spying hardware started being common long enough ago that people aren’t really going to be able to avoid it when buying used, unless they have the time and money to maintain a classic car.
It isn’t just your driving either. They also very commonly log location and audio inside the car as well.
Yes!! It frustrates me so much when the proposed answer is “buy an older car”, which is not a longterm solution.
It would be cool to have an iFixit-like score for each model.
Iirc Mozilla tried, but they all were so terrible everybody got an F according to their (IMO pretty fair) standards.
This was a completely different thing - the report was about what data they collect or have the capability to collect, rather than how easy it is to remove the telematics unit and which functions would be impacted by it. The suggested measures against this were pretty basic, no mention was made of actual modifications.
I’d expect in most cars it’s as simple as pulling a fuse for the cellular radio. But depending on how the car is designed that might break other features like the infotainment or keyless entry. It’s hit or miss how any given car will react to things being unplugged.
They will record it and upload it at your next service.
The problem is that in the past you would have your rates increased because you get into accidents because of bad drivers like this or the kind of car you drive being more popular with bad drivers. Driving slower will cause you to get into more accidents. Now they can do a root cause analysis and find the true reason for accidents. Unfortunately if you can afford higher rates then this doesn’t help anyone. States should have stepped in a long time ago to make getting a license more difficult and making testing more frequent.
Yeah, that is an important side effect of this. In their constant pursuit of higher profits, insurance companies can use this data to more accurately analyze what factors into making someone high risk.
They sure as hell won’t be discounting people that don’t show those traits, but it’s something.