possibly why your car insurance costs jumped
March 12, 2024 6:15 AM Subscribe
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip some G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.
Mandate it. You want to use public roads, you get monitored.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:25 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:25 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
I'm sure that if my results are good, my insurance rate will go down. /s
I'm leasing a RAV4, and there was a label on the dashboard saying:
VEHICLE DATA TRANSMISSION IS ON! Your vehicle wirelessly transmits location, driving, and vehicle health data to deliver your services and for internal research and data analysis. ... To disable, press vehicle's SOS button.
I haven't disabled it yet because pressing the SOS button sounds scarier than the data collection.
posted by MtDewd at 6:31 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I'm leasing a RAV4, and there was a label on the dashboard saying:
VEHICLE DATA TRANSMISSION IS ON! Your vehicle wirelessly transmits location, driving, and vehicle health data to deliver your services and for internal research and data analysis. ... To disable, press vehicle's SOS button.
I haven't disabled it yet because pressing the SOS button sounds scarier than the data collection.
posted by MtDewd at 6:31 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
Good start. But much better would be mandating technology that would limit drivers' ability to speed.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:32 AM on March 12 [20 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:32 AM on March 12 [20 favorites]
Driving behaviours is something that drivers can control so why not charge dangerous drivers more?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:39 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:39 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Am I the only one who thinks constant surveillance is horrifying?
posted by joannemerriam at 6:43 AM on March 12 [122 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 6:43 AM on March 12 [122 favorites]
Constant surveillance is horrifying, but your behavior behind the wheel has never been private.
Your local police department probably keeps track of your movements with license plate scanners. I like privacy, too, but it's hard to feel that driver behavior monitoring is an outstanding offense under the circumstances.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:52 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
Your local police department probably keeps track of your movements with license plate scanners. I like privacy, too, but it's hard to feel that driver behavior monitoring is an outstanding offense under the circumstances.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:52 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
The TOS for every major car manufacturer allows them to collect information about where you go and transmit it to third parties. Some of them (Nissan and Kia) also collect information about your "sex life" to sell to third parties. And it's not like you can read the TOS, and opt out of buying a particularly horrifying brand, because All of them are bad. It's not a good thing.
posted by subdee at 6:52 AM on March 12 [26 favorites]
The TOS for every major car manufacturer allows them to collect information about where you go and transmit it to third parties. Some of them (Nissan and Kia) also collect information about your "sex life" to sell to third parties. And it's not like you can read the TOS, and opt out of buying a particularly horrifying brand, because All of them are bad. It's not a good thing.
posted by subdee at 6:52 AM on March 12 [26 favorites]
It's way past time for vehicles on public roads to keep driver misbehaviour in check, both by limiting speed and recording egregious driving habits. I don't care what you do on the racetrack, go wild. But if you want to operate a deadly machine in a shared space with others, you owe it to society to do your absolute best to do no harm, and society owes it to the rest of us to control those who refuse to comply with that standard of safety.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:55 AM on March 12 [15 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:55 AM on March 12 [15 favorites]
joannemerriam: I don’t like surveillance, but I also would like 43k Americans not to die every year and that ship has already sailed. If your concern is privacy, cell phone data is far more of a concern and could even be used for this, so we really need privacy laws in general restricting how data can be used. That said, I think the effect would be modest: insurance companies do have a legitimate need to price risky behavior higher and I suspect the main outcome would be checking a “I consent to share my activity data” box to keep your premiums from doubling. What we should have are prohibitions against sharing and especially reselling that data so every MBA doesn’t think of it as an underutilized revenue stream.
In this case, I’m with Mr. Know-it-some: the best answer would be requiring vehicles used on public roads to have speed limiters but the “freedom = speeding” crowd strenuously oppose that, so we’re going to end up with insurance companies demanding it from everyone but the rich, giving the same concerns with less visibility and oversight.
posted by adamsc at 6:57 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
In this case, I’m with Mr. Know-it-some: the best answer would be requiring vehicles used on public roads to have speed limiters but the “freedom = speeding” crowd strenuously oppose that, so we’re going to end up with insurance companies demanding it from everyone but the rich, giving the same concerns with less visibility and oversight.
posted by adamsc at 6:57 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
I agree that something needs to be addressed about US drivers.
I don't think a good answer is constant surveillance and user data sharing.
A great answer is - a mandatory driving safety course every 5 years. Driver safety courses that should drop insurance rates when taken already, but don't automatically.
I do think lowering speed limits IN TOWN and even using more round-abouts can help - even tho they drive Americans absolutely nuts.
Also when the fuck did Drivers Ed disappear from schools? WTF? More up front training is needed before and after issuing a drivers license. (and after as stated above)
posted by djseafood at 7:02 AM on March 12 [25 favorites]
I don't think a good answer is constant surveillance and user data sharing.
A great answer is - a mandatory driving safety course every 5 years. Driver safety courses that should drop insurance rates when taken already, but don't automatically.
I do think lowering speed limits IN TOWN and even using more round-abouts can help - even tho they drive Americans absolutely nuts.
Also when the fuck did Drivers Ed disappear from schools? WTF? More up front training is needed before and after issuing a drivers license. (and after as stated above)
posted by djseafood at 7:02 AM on March 12 [25 favorites]
Every conservative governor in America is reading this story like, "Can we tell when her car gets near Planned Parenthood?"
posted by mittens at 7:08 AM on March 12 [81 favorites]
posted by mittens at 7:08 AM on March 12 [81 favorites]
I am sure insurance companies will use this information in an ethical and reasonable way to promote public safety.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:12 AM on March 12 [57 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:12 AM on March 12 [57 favorites]
It’s bigger than cars. Perhaps in the future your life or health insurance premiums go up after purchasing alcohol or barbecue. Maybe you’re flying down hills too fast on your bike and your smartwatch tells on you
posted by spork at 7:13 AM on March 12 [33 favorites]
posted by spork at 7:13 AM on March 12 [33 favorites]
Bollards collect no data.
Trees never pull you over.
Speed humps are not connected to electronics.
Rocks too.
Narrow lanes as well.
You don't need a surveillance infrastructure to keep driving safe.
You can let the owners and employees of body shops listen to bad drivers' excuses and confessions - it's much easier to do when the driver is sending your kids to Disneyworld.
posted by ocschwar at 7:13 AM on March 12 [54 favorites]
Trees never pull you over.
Speed humps are not connected to electronics.
Rocks too.
Narrow lanes as well.
You don't need a surveillance infrastructure to keep driving safe.
You can let the owners and employees of body shops listen to bad drivers' excuses and confessions - it's much easier to do when the driver is sending your kids to Disneyworld.
posted by ocschwar at 7:13 AM on March 12 [54 favorites]
We just got a new Honda, and it came with Lowjack for 6 months. My wife gets notified every time I speed in the car. (We also have a State Farm app and transponder, so they know already how fast we go.)
posted by Spike Glee at 7:14 AM on March 12
posted by Spike Glee at 7:14 AM on March 12
Education and speed limit signs don't produce better drivers. Drivers aren't speeding and driving recklessly because they somehow don't know it's bad to do it; it's because the consequences, though potentially deadly, happen infrequently enough that they become conditioned to think they will get away with it. And our roads are built to cushion them from their mistakes, with wide lanes and shoulders and break-away light poles that "forgive" mistakes while also encouraging greater speed and recklessness. And when there are consequences (i.e. a driver gets in a collision) we all call it an "accident" and everyone goes on their merry way, changing nothing about their behavior.
I honestly am not sure surveillance would help, but maybe people care more about very likely cost increase vs less likely death-causing.
And certainly we could and should design our roads to force people to slow the fuck down-- oh wait, no we can't because our society is built around ensuring throughput and speed of travel over literally everything else.
posted by misskaz at 7:17 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I honestly am not sure surveillance would help, but maybe people care more about very likely cost increase vs less likely death-causing.
And certainly we could and should design our roads to force people to slow the fuck down-- oh wait, no we can't because our society is built around ensuring throughput and speed of travel over literally everything else.
posted by misskaz at 7:17 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
What you're saying is, I can just pay a slightly higher insurance premium and speed merrily past all you poor schmucks?
posted by MiraK at 7:26 AM on March 12 [29 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 7:26 AM on March 12 [29 favorites]
All that data and yet they don’t have anything that records when you’re tailgating. So tired of cars running up on my back bumper at 70 mph because I’m passing someone in the left lane - as it is meant to be used - but apparently I’m in the way of their god-given right to do 90-95. Back off, jerk, I’ll move back over to the middle lane when I’ve passed this RV and it’s safe to do so.
posted by azpenguin at 7:34 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 7:34 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Your privacy ends when you put my life at risk. Drivers kill more than 40,000 people annually in the U.S. And it doesn't have to be this way: Our death rate is much higher than other developed countries. Part of that has to do with our geography, but most of those deaths and injuries are ones we've decided to accept.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:36 AM on March 12 [5 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:36 AM on March 12 [5 favorites]
Am I the only one who thinks constant surveillance is horrifying?
I first became aware of this when I took a pair of Mormon elders out for a meal, they've been sending pairs of these young men out to our community for years and I've recruited their labours a few times. They seem eager to do something, and I can use the help, and I usually make sure I get them a meal before they cycle through to their next assignment. We don't talk religion.
It was over the meal that I learned of the tracking/monitoring devices in their vehicle, I think it was connected to the phone that was issued to them for their mission. These two are never supposed to be separate from one another, and vehicle mileage and position is monitored at all times. At least, according to the one guy who was explaining it all to me. He claimed it even logs speed.
So don't fret, we'll all be Mormons one day.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:38 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
I first became aware of this when I took a pair of Mormon elders out for a meal, they've been sending pairs of these young men out to our community for years and I've recruited their labours a few times. They seem eager to do something, and I can use the help, and I usually make sure I get them a meal before they cycle through to their next assignment. We don't talk religion.
It was over the meal that I learned of the tracking/monitoring devices in their vehicle, I think it was connected to the phone that was issued to them for their mission. These two are never supposed to be separate from one another, and vehicle mileage and position is monitored at all times. At least, according to the one guy who was explaining it all to me. He claimed it even logs speed.
So don't fret, we'll all be Mormons one day.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:38 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
> your behavior behind the wheel has never been private.
Sure, and it should continue to not be private. My behavior behind the wheel should never be stored in private servers and traded between private corporations as a copyrighted or privately owned asset that nobody but that corporation has access to.
>Your privacy ends when you put my life at risk.
Exactly. When I put your life at risk. Not one moment sooner. You can put sensors along roads to catch speedsters, say, but you shouldn't be able to monitor every driver's every move when they haven't done anything unsafe.
posted by MiraK at 7:41 AM on March 12 [48 favorites]
Sure, and it should continue to not be private. My behavior behind the wheel should never be stored in private servers and traded between private corporations as a copyrighted or privately owned asset that nobody but that corporation has access to.
>Your privacy ends when you put my life at risk.
Exactly. When I put your life at risk. Not one moment sooner. You can put sensors along roads to catch speedsters, say, but you shouldn't be able to monitor every driver's every move when they haven't done anything unsafe.
posted by MiraK at 7:41 AM on March 12 [48 favorites]
I totally get wanting to reduce road deaths and injuries but there have got to be so many ways to do so which don’t involve also opting into the car company knowing about e.g. your sex life.
posted by Whale Oil at 7:50 AM on March 12 [18 favorites]
posted by Whale Oil at 7:50 AM on March 12 [18 favorites]
A great answer is - a mandatory driving safety course every 5 years. Driver safety courses that should drop insurance rates when taken already, but don't automatically.Do we have any reason to believe that the problem is drivers not knowing that they’re supposed to follow traffic signals or signs? Even very young children know that you’re supposed to stop for a red light or stop sign, but I see someone choosing not to do that at least once every day in the 5 blocks to my son’s school. Yesterday, we saw someone park in the middle of the road to unload their child and a separate driver choose to use the oncoming traffic lane to pass everyone waiting at a red light.
The problem here is not knowledge but lack of enforcement. Every single driver knows these rules, but they also know that the odds of even being caught are extremely low and the consequences will likely be minimal even then, so they choose to ignore the laws. I personally would prefer non-surveillance approaches like cameras at intersections and speed limiters in vehicles, but since many drivers treat those as anathema few places have been willing to hold drivers accountable for their behavior, and that’s how we get to the private insurance companies having strong demand for getting risk data from other sources. It’s very similar to how governments ignored climate change for decades to avoid hard political decisions and now a lot of overdue action is being driven by insurance at greater cost for lower efficiency.
posted by adamsc at 7:58 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
How do the car companies collect information about your sex life?
posted by ericthegardener at 8:01 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by ericthegardener at 8:01 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Microphones in the back seat area.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:06 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 8:06 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
My insurance company has a voluntary monitoring app and gives me perks for good driving—I’ve gotten hundreds of dollars in gift cards and gasoline discounts.
posted by Melismata at 8:07 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 8:07 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
how do you flee without people finding you if your car is continually surveilled.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:10 AM on March 12 [14 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:10 AM on March 12 [14 favorites]
Ignoring all the surveillance hardware, in what ways has American driving behavior changed since the 50’s? Such as accidents per drivers on the road. Are we worse now or better? Or the same?
In regards to technology, the urge to eliminate knobs and switches on the dashboard to increase profits by just having a touch screen, has made driver distraction much higher than in the past. Tesla’s removal of the turn signal thing on the steering column and replacing it with non haptic buttons on a probably crowded with content touch screen, requiring using your right hand and not your left to signal a turn, is ridiculous. You have to look taking your eyes off the road. And then there are phones…
Knowing you might be caught, radar gun or a sneaky program running in your car, has not been a deterrent to bad drivers. Maybe the information gathering is really about serving tailored ads on those touchscreens while you’re driving.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:19 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
In regards to technology, the urge to eliminate knobs and switches on the dashboard to increase profits by just having a touch screen, has made driver distraction much higher than in the past. Tesla’s removal of the turn signal thing on the steering column and replacing it with non haptic buttons on a probably crowded with content touch screen, requiring using your right hand and not your left to signal a turn, is ridiculous. You have to look taking your eyes off the road. And then there are phones…
Knowing you might be caught, radar gun or a sneaky program running in your car, has not been a deterrent to bad drivers. Maybe the information gathering is really about serving tailored ads on those touchscreens while you’re driving.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:19 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
subdee: Some of them (Nissan and Kia) also collect information about your "sex life" to sell to third parties
Both Kia owners that have sex will be very upset by this.
posted by dr_dank at 8:22 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Both Kia owners that have sex will be very upset by this.
posted by dr_dank at 8:22 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Relying on "Enforcement" is a nebulous goal at best and at worst ends up with dead brown people on the side of the road. Last I checked we have a real problem with police in the country and their idea of "fairness"
FWIW - Education can teach and reinforce some kind of respect, reminding drivers that they are amongst other people not other cars is a big part of remembering to respect your fellow travelers.
posted by djseafood at 8:23 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
FWIW - Education can teach and reinforce some kind of respect, reminding drivers that they are amongst other people not other cars is a big part of remembering to respect your fellow travelers.
posted by djseafood at 8:23 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
All that data and yet they don’t have anything that records when you’re tailgating.
Sure they do! Any car equipped with some form of accident avoidance system will alert the driver if they're too close to a car. A lot of them will actually slow the car down and keep a safe distance.
........
Also when the fuck did Drivers Ed disappear from schools?
The day after the first private driver training company opened shop.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:23 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
Sure they do! Any car equipped with some form of accident avoidance system will alert the driver if they're too close to a car. A lot of them will actually slow the car down and keep a safe distance.
........
Also when the fuck did Drivers Ed disappear from schools?
The day after the first private driver training company opened shop.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:23 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
Both Kia owners that have sex will be very upset by this.
Oh, we are.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:25 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
Oh, we are.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:25 AM on March 12 [9 favorites]
How do the car companies collect information about your sex life?
I would expect the methods vary by manufacturer, but quite a lot can be gathered without A/V recording. Time of day, location, number of occupied seats (recall that front passenger seats have sensors intended to disable airbags for someone too small that might be killed by the airbag, well, those are now also occupancy sensors), a time-series showing both front seats being occupied, then unoccupied, then the back seats become occupied while the car experiences minor side-to-side or up-down motion while none of the wheels are engaged....
posted by aramaic at 8:44 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
I would expect the methods vary by manufacturer, but quite a lot can be gathered without A/V recording. Time of day, location, number of occupied seats (recall that front passenger seats have sensors intended to disable airbags for someone too small that might be killed by the airbag, well, those are now also occupancy sensors), a time-series showing both front seats being occupied, then unoccupied, then the back seats become occupied while the car experiences minor side-to-side or up-down motion while none of the wheels are engaged....
posted by aramaic at 8:44 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
Or, y'know, GPS tracking showing the car at a hotel/motel for an afternoon.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
> It’s very similar to how governments ignored climate change for decades to avoid hard political decisions and now a lot of overdue action is being driven by insurance at greater cost for lower efficiency.
Wait, what? Are you suggesting that insurance companies are forcing governments (or any other entities) to take action that mitigates climate change? Where? When?
Here's what I see in reality: when things get rough, private insurers slash coverage or hike premiums or exit the market, and then governments (taxpayers) step in to bridge the gaps with affordable coverage. For example real estate developments on Florida and Louisiana coasts continue unabated, as do developments in California fire & earthquake zones - state insurers have stepped in every single time when private insurers have noped out, and so nothing changes. Policy, consumer habits, private profits... all remain unchanged.
posted by MiraK at 8:55 AM on March 12 [5 favorites]
Wait, what? Are you suggesting that insurance companies are forcing governments (or any other entities) to take action that mitigates climate change? Where? When?
Here's what I see in reality: when things get rough, private insurers slash coverage or hike premiums or exit the market, and then governments (taxpayers) step in to bridge the gaps with affordable coverage. For example real estate developments on Florida and Louisiana coasts continue unabated, as do developments in California fire & earthquake zones - state insurers have stepped in every single time when private insurers have noped out, and so nothing changes. Policy, consumer habits, private profits... all remain unchanged.
posted by MiraK at 8:55 AM on March 12 [5 favorites]
I understand why people might grasp at anything that promises safer roads, especially if you live in an automobile-centric country like the US. But letting insurance companies keep 24/7 survalance on you seems like a terrible idea. Those companies are constantly targeted by hackers, and Prudential, Geico, and United Health have all had major breaches in the last month. Can't imagine what kind of hijinks scammers can get up to when they know your every movement.
Also...the last time I got in a serious accident with another driver, they didn't have insurance, or even a license, and that didn't stop them from getting behind the wheel and doing 60mph in a 30mph area. Will these individualized increased rates increase safety, or will they just cause reckless drivers to drop their insurance completely?
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 8:57 AM on March 12 [20 favorites]
Also...the last time I got in a serious accident with another driver, they didn't have insurance, or even a license, and that didn't stop them from getting behind the wheel and doing 60mph in a 30mph area. Will these individualized increased rates increase safety, or will they just cause reckless drivers to drop their insurance completely?
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 8:57 AM on March 12 [20 favorites]
Knowing you might be caught, radar gun or a sneaky program running in your car, has not been a deterrent to bad drivers.
This is untrue. Speed cameras have been shown in multiple studies to not only reduce speed but collisions, injuries, and deaths.
I think the individual surveillance is unlikely to be effective, but speed camera enforcement absolutely works when it is well thought out and well-signed. I also saw an article recently (but unfortunately cannot find the link now) that many folks oppose them on the condition that it's punishing/targeting the people in the neighborhood where it's located, but that analysis of those ticketed showed that the majority were nonresidents of the neighborhood where the camera was located.
posted by misskaz at 9:00 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
This is untrue. Speed cameras have been shown in multiple studies to not only reduce speed but collisions, injuries, and deaths.
I think the individual surveillance is unlikely to be effective, but speed camera enforcement absolutely works when it is well thought out and well-signed. I also saw an article recently (but unfortunately cannot find the link now) that many folks oppose them on the condition that it's punishing/targeting the people in the neighborhood where it's located, but that analysis of those ticketed showed that the majority were nonresidents of the neighborhood where the camera was located.
posted by misskaz at 9:00 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
There is a big difference between this and regular traffic enforcement. With a traffic camera, you get a letter in the mail from the local government with a photo of your car if you speed or run a red light. As the article stresses, there is little to no transparency with LexisNexis. Your possession reports on your habits to a 3rd party, which sends to another 3rd party who raises your rates, all without your knowledge or consent. Any fan of Dr. Strangelove knows that the whole point of deterrence is lost if you keep it a secret.
posted by Prof. Danger at 9:02 AM on March 12 [21 favorites]
posted by Prof. Danger at 9:02 AM on March 12 [21 favorites]
This is something I feel like I might approve of with proper safeguards, like stripping the data of GPS location and time data before sending it, allowing customers to appeal what they believe to be incorrect data with recourse to a consumer advocate body, making sure victims of partner abuse are protected as they prepare to leave an abuser, etc., but of course that is not how it will play out because profits might suffer a few tenths of a percent.
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 9:07 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
posted by nanny's striped stocking at 9:07 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
Another solution to keep your data private: drive older cars
posted by djseafood at 9:22 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 9:22 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I'm OK with all of this.
It's already possible for cars with onboard navigation systems (not to mention cars with phones plugged into them) to monitor your speed compared to the posted speed limit and warn you when you're exceeding it. Along the same lines as adaptive cruise control maintaining speed and distance from the car in front of you, cars should be intelligent enough to prevent people from exceeding the speed limit. No more reckless driving through a school zone because the car knows not to do that even if you want to.
posted by emelenjr at 9:24 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
It's already possible for cars with onboard navigation systems (not to mention cars with phones plugged into them) to monitor your speed compared to the posted speed limit and warn you when you're exceeding it. Along the same lines as adaptive cruise control maintaining speed and distance from the car in front of you, cars should be intelligent enough to prevent people from exceeding the speed limit. No more reckless driving through a school zone because the car knows not to do that even if you want to.
posted by emelenjr at 9:24 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
there have got to be so many ways to do so which don’t involve also opting into the car company knowing about e.g. your sex life.
You could monitor dangerous vehicle behavior (speeding, swerving, abrupt stops, racing starts, etc.) without knowing who's driving and where they're going. Make it expensive to insure a car that's driven dangerously.
If one of your kids drove the family car like a maniac and you ended up having to pay some multiples of the normal rate to insure the car, you'd shut down the kid's driving without knowing anything about the kid's sex life.
And if that didn't work, the government could impound the vehicle without knowing anything about anyone's sex life (other than that maybe you aren't getting any since they took your car away).
posted by pracowity at 9:30 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
You could monitor dangerous vehicle behavior (speeding, swerving, abrupt stops, racing starts, etc.) without knowing who's driving and where they're going. Make it expensive to insure a car that's driven dangerously.
If one of your kids drove the family car like a maniac and you ended up having to pay some multiples of the normal rate to insure the car, you'd shut down the kid's driving without knowing anything about the kid's sex life.
And if that didn't work, the government could impound the vehicle without knowing anything about anyone's sex life (other than that maybe you aren't getting any since they took your car away).
posted by pracowity at 9:30 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
If we are going this route please have remote kill switches for police to use on all cars.
I'm sick and horrified of highways and byways becoming pit maneuver central for police. If driving is a luxury expecting to be able to live while driving should be a baseline.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:42 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
I'm sick and horrified of highways and byways becoming pit maneuver central for police. If driving is a luxury expecting to be able to live while driving should be a baseline.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:42 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
All that data and yet they don’t have anything that records when you’re tailgating.
Instead of squealing on you, your car could squeal on the guy driving behind you. Video of the plate number, vehicle make and color, distance, speed, visibility, etc.
posted by pracowity at 9:52 AM on March 12
Instead of squealing on you, your car could squeal on the guy driving behind you. Video of the plate number, vehicle make and color, distance, speed, visibility, etc.
posted by pracowity at 9:52 AM on March 12
I didn't expect so many people on Metafilter to be defending notoriously unethical insurance companies as well as car manufacturers conspiring to collect and sell data without the knowledge or consent of consumers. I guess the argument is that in this case it's OK because we dislike drivers more than we dislike rapacious insurance companies? Like it or not (and I'll just repeat it here since it comes up in every Metafilter discussion about cars) lots of people live in places where they need cars to get around and they need cars to get to work. Unexpected rate hikes of 20-30% could be devastating to a lot of people.
I mean, based on this story, the data collection is doing nothing to improve their driving behaviors (unlike opt-in systems) and there is no recourse for them to contest the data. Which, by the way, is collected without any context, like from the guy who responsibly took his fast car to a closed track to drive it.
If we had a transparent government program in place mandating that this data be collected and allocating risk and insurance based on that outcome, that might be one thing, but this is an unalloyed bad thing and we should not be supporting this behavior by private companies. The comparison to monitoring people for health insurance purposes is on point, and another example of something very easy to abuse.
posted by dellsolace at 10:00 AM on March 12 [43 favorites]
I mean, based on this story, the data collection is doing nothing to improve their driving behaviors (unlike opt-in systems) and there is no recourse for them to contest the data. Which, by the way, is collected without any context, like from the guy who responsibly took his fast car to a closed track to drive it.
If we had a transparent government program in place mandating that this data be collected and allocating risk and insurance based on that outcome, that might be one thing, but this is an unalloyed bad thing and we should not be supporting this behavior by private companies. The comparison to monitoring people for health insurance purposes is on point, and another example of something very easy to abuse.
posted by dellsolace at 10:00 AM on March 12 [43 favorites]
If we are going this route please have remote kill switches for police to use on all cars.
You do understand that a car with no power is highly uncontrollable, right? As in, power steering stops and power brakes stop. A car suddenly losing power and control on a busy highway is a hell of a lot more dangerous than it speeding was.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:01 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
You do understand that a car with no power is highly uncontrollable, right? As in, power steering stops and power brakes stop. A car suddenly losing power and control on a busy highway is a hell of a lot more dangerous than it speeding was.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:01 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
I am about as anti car-dependency as you can get and am very angry about the way drivers operate their death machines, but handing free reign to private corporations under very limited democratic accountability is not a solution.
posted by rhymedirective at 10:06 AM on March 12 [27 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 10:06 AM on March 12 [27 favorites]
I'm torn between the idea of this being overreach and having been the victim of 2 bad drivers.
Once I was in a crosswalk struck by a driver that simply should not have been driving. They ignored all signs, lights, and more importantly the person directly in front of them in the crosswalk. They knew about the crosswalk, they came to a complete stop but apparently I wasn't walking fast enough for them because they decided to accelerate into me while I was in motion. Luckily for me they weren't going fast enough to do serious harm, only slightly inconvenient miss work for a month and get stuck paying off the bills over the course of 2 years while I wait for their insurance company to do their job harm.
Then I was stationary on a bicycle at a stop sign behind another car waiting for a driver to pass by so we could enter traffic. That driver we were waiting for decided it would be a brilliant maneuver to do what effectively amounted to a U-turn looping around the car in front of me in order to go the wrong way into a Taco Bell drive thru. In this instance the harm was... far more significant. Interestingly enough, the officer that responded to the call by a Taco Bell employee decided it was in the best interest of the driver to let them go. I never got any of the drivers information and the Taco Bell footage did not show the license plate in any meaningful way. There were witnesses and by all accounts, the driver was intoxicated. Regardless, it was my duty to pay tens of thousands of dollars over the course of years in order to become healthy again.
So I hope people can understand my desire to hold drivers' accountable for their actions. I could do without the surveillance state but is it what we need to stop this kind of behavior? It's not like a car that slows down would've made much difference in the incident at a Taco Bell, when you're under the car it doesn't really matter does it? When the reporting officer lets people go, does it matter if the car comes to a complete stop after they hit you? But then again, this just let rich people who don't care about insignificant premium increases go on without a care.
posted by JakeEXTREME at 10:11 AM on March 12 [15 favorites]
Once I was in a crosswalk struck by a driver that simply should not have been driving. They ignored all signs, lights, and more importantly the person directly in front of them in the crosswalk. They knew about the crosswalk, they came to a complete stop but apparently I wasn't walking fast enough for them because they decided to accelerate into me while I was in motion. Luckily for me they weren't going fast enough to do serious harm, only slightly inconvenient miss work for a month and get stuck paying off the bills over the course of 2 years while I wait for their insurance company to do their job harm.
Then I was stationary on a bicycle at a stop sign behind another car waiting for a driver to pass by so we could enter traffic. That driver we were waiting for decided it would be a brilliant maneuver to do what effectively amounted to a U-turn looping around the car in front of me in order to go the wrong way into a Taco Bell drive thru. In this instance the harm was... far more significant. Interestingly enough, the officer that responded to the call by a Taco Bell employee decided it was in the best interest of the driver to let them go. I never got any of the drivers information and the Taco Bell footage did not show the license plate in any meaningful way. There were witnesses and by all accounts, the driver was intoxicated. Regardless, it was my duty to pay tens of thousands of dollars over the course of years in order to become healthy again.
So I hope people can understand my desire to hold drivers' accountable for their actions. I could do without the surveillance state but is it what we need to stop this kind of behavior? It's not like a car that slows down would've made much difference in the incident at a Taco Bell, when you're under the car it doesn't really matter does it? When the reporting officer lets people go, does it matter if the car comes to a complete stop after they hit you? But then again, this just let rich people who don't care about insignificant premium increases go on without a care.
posted by JakeEXTREME at 10:11 AM on March 12 [15 favorites]
Relying on "Enforcement" is a nebulous goal at best and at worst ends up with dead brown people on the side of the road. Last I checked we have a real problem with police in the country and their idea of "fairness"There are forms of enforcement, such as everything we've been talking about in this thread, which do not involved armed police response. I also find it uncomfortable to use equity as an argument against driver accountability because traffic deaths and injuries skew disproportionately towards the same communities because they're more likely to live in a neighborhood full of unsafe roads designed around speeding up white suburbanites' commutes, often with limited to no pedestrian infrastructure, and more likely to be working jobs or otherwise traveling at riskier times. A disturbing percentage collisions with pedestrians are near bus stops because the city didn't want to slow down the important people driving by putting in a signaled crosswalk for people on foot.
FWIW - Education can teach and reinforce some kind of respect, reminding drivers that they are amongst other people not other cars is a big part of remembering to respect your fellow travelers.If that was going to work, a century of trying mostly to do no more than that would have shown better results. Safety campaigns have been running since before WWI but they're just not very effective because very few drivers set out intending to kill someone and almost everyone thinks that they're skilled enough to avoid problems. That means that even if they do look up from their phones long enough to see the “drive safely” warning on a billboard, they assume it applies to other people who aren't as good as them, aren't running late, etc. Humans are very good at rationalizing antisocial behavior when it's something we want to do and the only thing which keeps that in check is some kind of negative feedback loop.
What I was referring to is that we have things like housing built in flood zones or with limited safety standards but nobody in power was willing to tell people that their house is in an area which is no longer safe and the answer is either to move further away from water or invest significant amounts of their own money in hardening measures. Now that kind of change is being driven by insurance companies pulling out of markets but doing that piecemeal at that level means that it's slow and inconsistent, as well as more damaging to people without significant assets other than their house. You mentioned how governments react, but that's really just the next stage in the disaster - Florida is full of people who are complaining about 30% annual cost increases and while it's true that the state's insurer of last resort (Citizens) is covering people, that's really expensive (60% average premium increase last year) and the state is likely to face problems the next time a big storm hits without much larger reserves.It’s very similar to how governments ignored climate change for decades to avoid hard political decisions and now a lot of overdue action is being driven by insurance at greater cost for lower efficiency.Wait, what? Are you suggesting that insurance companies are forcing governments (or any other entities) to take action that mitigates climate change? Where? When?
Again, my point was simply that in both cases there's a known problem with known fixes but because they involve people having to change what they do to benefit their community, those have not been popular with Americans and we end up with worse results than we would have by directly addressing the problem. I don't like what the insurance companies are doing in this case, and we really shouldn't be expecting them to curb antisocial behaviors in any situation, but it seems like we're going to get more of this as long as we refuse to do anything else to lower the impact of unsafe driving on surrounding communities. I would really like it if the anger being directed at the insurance companies was channeled into demanding things like speed limiters and taking away licenses from people who refuse to drive safely.
posted by adamsc at 10:19 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]
I get that mefi is anti-car and all that, but this is beyond the pale. Even if I accepted without question the highly dubious activity of sharing data without owners knowledge, without context it's hard to say if someone "braked too hard" because they were being reckless, or because someone else was being reckless. There are many, many ways to be a dangerous driver (e.g., driving *exactly at the speed limit* in the left-most lane) that won't show up on this data. The profit motive for insurance companies ensures that, if this isn't nipped in the bud, it will do far more to line their pockets than to increase automotive safety.
You know what *would* be great? If we actually had better traffic law enforcement instead of speed traps. I see tons of dangerous drivers around these parts -- is this data going to increase the rates for the assholes who pull out in front of other drivers instead of waiting for them to pass because they can't bear to be *behind another car*? Will it flag drivers who habitually don't use turn signals?
This data doesn't tell the full story *and* the insurers should have no right to it. I'd be OK with a "black box" system where the data can be accessed with a warrant, and possibly even a system where there are incentives to share the data - but there is so much wrong with just passing this data from one business to another without the owner of the car being informed or consenting. (And when I say "consenting" I don't mean "having no choice but to consent" or "assumed consent absent a laborious opt-out process.)
posted by jzb at 10:25 AM on March 12 [25 favorites]
You know what *would* be great? If we actually had better traffic law enforcement instead of speed traps. I see tons of dangerous drivers around these parts -- is this data going to increase the rates for the assholes who pull out in front of other drivers instead of waiting for them to pass because they can't bear to be *behind another car*? Will it flag drivers who habitually don't use turn signals?
This data doesn't tell the full story *and* the insurers should have no right to it. I'd be OK with a "black box" system where the data can be accessed with a warrant, and possibly even a system where there are incentives to share the data - but there is so much wrong with just passing this data from one business to another without the owner of the car being informed or consenting. (And when I say "consenting" I don't mean "having no choice but to consent" or "assumed consent absent a laborious opt-out process.)
posted by jzb at 10:25 AM on March 12 [25 favorites]
I'm not in love with the privacy overreach but I do think a lot more could be done with monitoring and automation to prevent shitty driving.
If there's a way to do the monitoring without submitting location information to the insurance company or manufacturer, I'd be a lot more comfortable with the privacy breech. If the car knows the speed limit and can calculate how much you're speeding by, then the location where you are (is it near your house? an abortion clinic as someone mentioned above? your affair partner's house? a murder victim's house?) speeding should be fair to middling irrelevant to share.
But also just in terms of what the car itself is capable of, why? Like, the top speed of a Honda Civic is 137 MILES per hour. The highest speed limit anywhere in North America is 137 KILOMETERS per hour. Why the fuck are we even allowed to buy cars that can go 60 percent faster than it is legally allowed to go anywhere on the continent on which they are sold? I'm assuming if I googled the numbers for something that was a performance car, they'd be wildly more out of whack.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:28 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
If there's a way to do the monitoring without submitting location information to the insurance company or manufacturer, I'd be a lot more comfortable with the privacy breech. If the car knows the speed limit and can calculate how much you're speeding by, then the location where you are (is it near your house? an abortion clinic as someone mentioned above? your affair partner's house? a murder victim's house?) speeding should be fair to middling irrelevant to share.
But also just in terms of what the car itself is capable of, why? Like, the top speed of a Honda Civic is 137 MILES per hour. The highest speed limit anywhere in North America is 137 KILOMETERS per hour. Why the fuck are we even allowed to buy cars that can go 60 percent faster than it is legally allowed to go anywhere on the continent on which they are sold? I'm assuming if I googled the numbers for something that was a performance car, they'd be wildly more out of whack.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:28 AM on March 12 [6 favorites]
Why do people think they are entitled to privacy in how they operate a piece of dangerous equipment in public view? How does this concept of privacy even work?
posted by gauche at 10:33 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
posted by gauche at 10:33 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
> I didn't expect so many people on Metafilter to be defending notoriously unethical insurance companies as well as car manufacturers conspiring to collect and sell data without the knowledge or consent of consumers.
yeah, this thread's some weird shit. for folks who don't see why it's some weird shit, think of this as what if third-party cookies but it's your car. oh shoot and also: going to a protest? remember to leave your phone and also your car at home. furthermore: note that companies that gather and sell this type of data have a well-established track record of giving said data to the fuckin' cops.
anyway. car-based surveillance is a fuck and don't support it please.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:35 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
yeah, this thread's some weird shit. for folks who don't see why it's some weird shit, think of this as what if third-party cookies but it's your car. oh shoot and also: going to a protest? remember to leave your phone and also your car at home. furthermore: note that companies that gather and sell this type of data have a well-established track record of giving said data to the fuckin' cops.
anyway. car-based surveillance is a fuck and don't support it please.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:35 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
Some of them (Nissan and Kia) also collect information about your "sex life" to sell to third parties.
I would expect the methods vary by manufacturer, but quite a lot can be gathered without A/V recording. Time of day, location, number of occupied seats (recall that front passenger seats have sensors intended to disable airbags for someone too small that might be killed by the airbag, well, those are now also occupancy sensors), a time-series showing both front seats being occupied, then unoccupied, then the back seats become occupied while the car experiences minor side-to-side or up-down motion while none of the wheels are engaged....
The error rate is so big on this its functionally useless and lacks information. They have no training data. They're just guessing.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:40 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
I would expect the methods vary by manufacturer, but quite a lot can be gathered without A/V recording. Time of day, location, number of occupied seats (recall that front passenger seats have sensors intended to disable airbags for someone too small that might be killed by the airbag, well, those are now also occupancy sensors), a time-series showing both front seats being occupied, then unoccupied, then the back seats become occupied while the car experiences minor side-to-side or up-down motion while none of the wheels are engaged....
The error rate is so big on this its functionally useless and lacks information. They have no training data. They're just guessing.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:40 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]
but like seriously, this statement upthread from mittens:
> Every conservative governor in America is reading this story like, "Can we tell when her car gets near Planned Parenthood?"
is pretty much the start and the end of the conversation, right? like if there's anything to add — maybe something about zealous police departments and prosecutors in states that promise to do harm to you should you help someone else get out of the state for medical care — it's just kind of a flourish attached to the main point.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:42 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
> Every conservative governor in America is reading this story like, "Can we tell when her car gets near Planned Parenthood?"
is pretty much the start and the end of the conversation, right? like if there's anything to add — maybe something about zealous police departments and prosecutors in states that promise to do harm to you should you help someone else get out of the state for medical care — it's just kind of a flourish attached to the main point.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:42 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
This is why we need a US equivalent of the EU GDPR and privacy by design; with affirmative consent before collection and sharing and opt out as the default written in the law.
I do wonder if state laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act are being violated here.
posted by interogative mood at 10:46 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
I do wonder if state laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act are being violated here.
posted by interogative mood at 10:46 AM on March 12 [11 favorites]
How are any of you alive in 2024 America and thinking that a surveillance program operated by car manufacturers and insurance company is an unalloyed good?
posted by axiom at 10:46 AM on March 12 [34 favorites]
posted by axiom at 10:46 AM on March 12 [34 favorites]
agreed with the WTF in this thread?!
Like I get that Americans are resistant to change but maybe, I dunno try? Try a little before you sell everyone's driving behavior bad OR GOOD to the highest bidder? wha?
Bad drivers have injured people close to me too but I'm not advocating to take away everyone's privileges because of bad drivers....
posted by djseafood at 10:49 AM on March 12 [10 favorites]
Like I get that Americans are resistant to change but maybe, I dunno try? Try a little before you sell everyone's driving behavior bad OR GOOD to the highest bidder? wha?
Bad drivers have injured people close to me too but I'm not advocating to take away everyone's privileges because of bad drivers....
posted by djseafood at 10:49 AM on March 12 [10 favorites]
possibly why your car insurance costs jumped
Hey, so, you wanna hear why my car insurance costs jumped?
I got a renewal bill from GEICO that was in "what, WHAT?" territory. I called in, and got... a whole lot of confusing talk about things I knew nothing about. Lots of "wait, no, repeat that" kinds of things (and yes, I took notes, and it was still confusing).
After much effort, it was recommended that I obtain the LexisNexis consumer risk report referenced above. Which I did. It contained a report from my own insurer - GEICO - about a claim that had absolutely nothing to do with anything I had done, or my cars, or anything my wife or my daughter had done, taking place somewhere we had never been a thousand miles from anywhere we'd been. It was just total nonsense, some other claim that had somehow been grafted onto my report.
Here's the thing. It was literally a couple of months of filing for review with LexisNexis to get this false claim from my own insurer off of my report, and it's still not clear why it happened. GEICO themselves provided absolutely no assistance or guidance in the matter, even though there's no question it was their error. Here's the big thing - since all the other insurers will pull the LexusNexis report when you try to move to them, this false GEICO report blocked me from moving to other insurers at a lower rate.
An even bigger thing: if the cops pull wrongly ticket you, you can take them to court. With a false "consumer risk" report? Not so much. There was almost nothing I could do other than work within the opaque, corporate system that surrounded the nonsense I was suddenly engulfed in.
It has, in the end, been resolved. I have moved off of GEICO, and they will never have my business again. But in my opinion, even if you think drivers should have more monitoring, having private corporations transmit reports into a private LexisNexis profile, which is largely oversight-free and which before any of this happened I didn't even know was a thing, should not be the way that this all is done.
posted by eschatfische at 10:57 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
Hey, so, you wanna hear why my car insurance costs jumped?
I got a renewal bill from GEICO that was in "what, WHAT?" territory. I called in, and got... a whole lot of confusing talk about things I knew nothing about. Lots of "wait, no, repeat that" kinds of things (and yes, I took notes, and it was still confusing).
After much effort, it was recommended that I obtain the LexisNexis consumer risk report referenced above. Which I did. It contained a report from my own insurer - GEICO - about a claim that had absolutely nothing to do with anything I had done, or my cars, or anything my wife or my daughter had done, taking place somewhere we had never been a thousand miles from anywhere we'd been. It was just total nonsense, some other claim that had somehow been grafted onto my report.
Here's the thing. It was literally a couple of months of filing for review with LexisNexis to get this false claim from my own insurer off of my report, and it's still not clear why it happened. GEICO themselves provided absolutely no assistance or guidance in the matter, even though there's no question it was their error. Here's the big thing - since all the other insurers will pull the LexusNexis report when you try to move to them, this false GEICO report blocked me from moving to other insurers at a lower rate.
An even bigger thing: if the cops pull wrongly ticket you, you can take them to court. With a false "consumer risk" report? Not so much. There was almost nothing I could do other than work within the opaque, corporate system that surrounded the nonsense I was suddenly engulfed in.
It has, in the end, been resolved. I have moved off of GEICO, and they will never have my business again. But in my opinion, even if you think drivers should have more monitoring, having private corporations transmit reports into a private LexisNexis profile, which is largely oversight-free and which before any of this happened I didn't even know was a thing, should not be the way that this all is done.
posted by eschatfische at 10:57 AM on March 12 [24 favorites]
I've been told that another factor, unrelated to this article, is that cars in general are getting too sophisticated and costly to repair, you get end-up with fender benders that cost multiples thousands to repair, and even if you don't drive one of those, others around you do so your cost goes up.
Time to go grab a Westfalia it's repair manual I guess, this thing fore sure ain't spying on you.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:01 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
Time to go grab a Westfalia it's repair manual I guess, this thing fore sure ain't spying on you.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:01 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
Yeah this isn't about making anyone safer, it's about getting bigger margins on insurance policies.
I'm a safe driver, but it's not uncommon for me to have to slam my brakes because things happen. Last week I had to slam my brakes because someone ran out into the road from between two tall vehicles that blocked my view. I slammed my brakes because I didn't want to obliterate them. I had to slam my brakes because some asshole in a lifted pickup blew through a red light doing 20 over the limit. Those are signs that I'm paying attention because operating a vehicle is a dangerous task to begin with but to an insurance company, it's just gravy.
And seriously, does anything think lexisnexis isn't gonna roll over when some state DA wants to arrest someone for taking their kid out of state to get gender affirming care? Don't be naïve.
posted by Ferreous at 11:03 AM on March 12 [13 favorites]
I'm a safe driver, but it's not uncommon for me to have to slam my brakes because things happen. Last week I had to slam my brakes because someone ran out into the road from between two tall vehicles that blocked my view. I slammed my brakes because I didn't want to obliterate them. I had to slam my brakes because some asshole in a lifted pickup blew through a red light doing 20 over the limit. Those are signs that I'm paying attention because operating a vehicle is a dangerous task to begin with but to an insurance company, it's just gravy.
And seriously, does anything think lexisnexis isn't gonna roll over when some state DA wants to arrest someone for taking their kid out of state to get gender affirming care? Don't be naïve.
posted by Ferreous at 11:03 AM on March 12 [13 favorites]
I’m willing to bet that everybody or almost everybody commenting in this thread uses a smart phone, has a gmail or yahoo mail account, uses online banking, uses a credit card, and has a smart device with a microphone connected to the internet in their house or car already. All of these things are steeped in Big Data and none of them is a leading cause of accidental death in the US.
But when it comes to the thing that kills more people than guns, that’s a bridge too far.
posted by gauche at 11:22 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
But when it comes to the thing that kills more people than guns, that’s a bridge too far.
posted by gauche at 11:22 AM on March 12 [8 favorites]
They happily get directions from devices that know exactly where they are all the time. Devices owned by big, evil, interconnected corporations.
posted by pracowity at 11:30 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 11:30 AM on March 12 [2 favorites]
The thing about police states is that the vast majority of people, if you ask them without context if they want a police state, will say no, but if you offer overwhelming policing and surveillance as a solution to something they're (justifiably or unjustifiably) upset about rather a lot of them will get super excited about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:35 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:35 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I don’t understand how you can have a privacy right in how you operate a piece of dangerous equipment in public. I don’t think that makes me a shill for a police state.
posted by gauche at 11:37 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by gauche at 11:37 AM on March 12 [4 favorites]
> I don’t understand how you can have a privacy right in how you operate a piece of dangerous equipment in public. I don’t think that makes me a shill for a police state.
the state of texas has a law such that you will be punished if you help someone get out of the state to get medical care.
"lol surveillance is omnipresent nothing you can do to stop it" is a stance that is bad and no good. anything that contributes to the material effort and/or cognitive load required to do good opsec is strictly bad, and anything that makes it even harder to undo omnipresent surveillance is likewise strictly bad. yes, the best thing to do is get a burner phone using cash and likewise buy a greyhound ticket using cash and for the love of god keep all your stuff off of google's servers and containerize all your interactions with their servers because those fuckers not to be trusted are fuckers not to be trusted. no, it is not a good thing that that second step in the middle is now required, because now something that was a pain in the ass is now a massive pain in the ass.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:44 AM on March 12 [16 favorites]
the state of texas has a law such that you will be punished if you help someone get out of the state to get medical care.
"lol surveillance is omnipresent nothing you can do to stop it" is a stance that is bad and no good. anything that contributes to the material effort and/or cognitive load required to do good opsec is strictly bad, and anything that makes it even harder to undo omnipresent surveillance is likewise strictly bad. yes, the best thing to do is get a burner phone using cash and likewise buy a greyhound ticket using cash and for the love of god keep all your stuff off of google's servers and containerize all your interactions with their servers because those fuckers not to be trusted are fuckers not to be trusted. no, it is not a good thing that that second step in the middle is now required, because now something that was a pain in the ass is now a massive pain in the ass.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:44 AM on March 12 [16 favorites]
MetaFilter: Microphones in the back seat area.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:47 AM on March 12
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:47 AM on March 12
p.s. security concerns aside, anything that makes behavioral ad targeting easier is likewise strictly bad, because behavioral ad targeting is a devil that is ruining everything everywhere all the time.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:47 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:47 AM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Maybe you’re flying down hills too fast on your bike
This is Metafilter: no one has ever done anything bad on a bike, except be terribly sanctimonious.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:50 AM on March 12 [16 favorites]
This is Metafilter: no one has ever done anything bad on a bike, except be terribly sanctimonious.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:50 AM on March 12 [16 favorites]
That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking how do you have privacy in public?
If I stand on the street corner and pick my nose, people can see me doing it. That’s not an invasion of privacy, whether the people who see me are my insurance company or the police or anybody else.
If you run a red light, people can see you doing it. That’s not an invasion of privacy, either. So how does privacy attach to your actions as a driver?
posted by gauche at 11:51 AM on March 12
If I stand on the street corner and pick my nose, people can see me doing it. That’s not an invasion of privacy, whether the people who see me are my insurance company or the police or anybody else.
If you run a red light, people can see you doing it. That’s not an invasion of privacy, either. So how does privacy attach to your actions as a driver?
posted by gauche at 11:51 AM on March 12
people can see you doing it, yes. but unless you are a member of the damnable windsor family or else it's 2006 and you are britney spears, people are not following you around everywhere you go making a record of everything they see you do in order to sell that record to people who will pay money for it. people are not storing that record and because it is not stored the police can't get it. the most the police can get is eyewitness testimony, which is significantly less reliable than a comprehensive record of everything you do all the time always everywhere.
being able to the best of one's ability hide is a good thing, even if one cannot reliably hide from everyone all the time. it is good to be able to hide to the best of one's ability because — among other things — sometimes it's necessary to do crimes. it is not good to keep a record on everyone, because anyone doing that is inherently suspect and it can be presumed that they want to sell those records to people who want to pay money for it and moreover people who make and retain records can end up keeping you from doing the crimes that you have a moral obligation to do.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:57 AM on March 12 [10 favorites]
being able to the best of one's ability hide is a good thing, even if one cannot reliably hide from everyone all the time. it is good to be able to hide to the best of one's ability because — among other things — sometimes it's necessary to do crimes. it is not good to keep a record on everyone, because anyone doing that is inherently suspect and it can be presumed that they want to sell those records to people who want to pay money for it and moreover people who make and retain records can end up keeping you from doing the crimes that you have a moral obligation to do.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:57 AM on March 12 [10 favorites]
I don’t understand how you can have a privacy right in how you operate a piece of dangerous equipment in public. I don’t think that makes me a shill for a police state.
I think you're conflating "surveillance in order to reduce harms" with "surveillance for the private profit of evil corporations". The former is not happening, but the insurance companies would be more than thrilled that you're willing to believe it is so that you'll help provide cover for the latter.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:01 PM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I think you're conflating "surveillance in order to reduce harms" with "surveillance for the private profit of evil corporations". The former is not happening, but the insurance companies would be more than thrilled that you're willing to believe it is so that you'll help provide cover for the latter.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:01 PM on March 12 [17 favorites]
I don't need privacy from the people on the street watching me pick my nose. I need privacy from a corporation on the street watching for every time I pick my nose so that a matrix of my nose picking data can be harvested, attached to a data profile, and sold to hundreds of businesses who target me with ads for NoseX: Anti-Picking Spray.
"If we are going this route please have remote kill switches for police to use on all cars."
This is the craziest thing I have read on the blue all year.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 12:02 PM on March 12 [17 favorites]
"If we are going this route please have remote kill switches for police to use on all cars."
This is the craziest thing I have read on the blue all year.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 12:02 PM on March 12 [17 favorites]
> I think you're conflating "surveillance in order to reduce harms" with "surveillance for the private profit of evil corporations". The former is not happening, but the insurance companies would be more than thrilled that you're willing to believe it is so that you'll help provide cover for the latter.
also to be clear the doing crime and getting away with it element is necessary and very important, because it is often very important and necessary to do crime and get away with it
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:02 PM on March 12 [10 favorites]
also to be clear the doing crime and getting away with it element is necessary and very important, because it is often very important and necessary to do crime and get away with it
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:02 PM on March 12 [10 favorites]
@adamsc I agree with your larger point that better enforcement is urgently necessary to create safer roads. But IMO your notion that insurance companies have a hunger for risk data in order to identify & penalize dangerous drivers is kind of naive, and misguided because that's not how insurance companies work. At all.
There is currently ZERO climate action being driven by insurance companies, in reality. It kinda logically seems like they should be moving the needle but *they aren't*, not directly and not indirectly either. Why? Well, we could talk about how capitalism + government corruption = bailouts which nullify any pressure insurers exert on the market. But really the reason why insurers don't drive climate action is simple: it's because they aren't in the business of climate action. Given the right incentives they can (and do) actively oppose climate action. And that's why we should not pin even 1% of our hopes for climate action on insurers.
Similarly, auto insurers aren't in the business of road safety, and therefore we shouldn't pin even 1% of our hopes for road safety on them creating road safety either actively or passively, directly or indirectly. There are *already* built-in incentives for them to actively make the roads MORE dangerous for everyone: if they can make a dangerous driver pay sky high premiums, that's better than ensuring that this driver gets off the road, right? Insurance companies will not save us from dangerous drivers, because that is not the business they are in.
The anger against insurance companies is not misplaced. They are the right people to be mad at in this thread. Keep your eyes on the ball here. They want your data for profit reasons, NOT for road safety reasons. That is objectively and 100% a bad thing.
posted by MiraK at 12:09 PM on March 12 [12 favorites]
There is currently ZERO climate action being driven by insurance companies, in reality. It kinda logically seems like they should be moving the needle but *they aren't*, not directly and not indirectly either. Why? Well, we could talk about how capitalism + government corruption = bailouts which nullify any pressure insurers exert on the market. But really the reason why insurers don't drive climate action is simple: it's because they aren't in the business of climate action. Given the right incentives they can (and do) actively oppose climate action. And that's why we should not pin even 1% of our hopes for climate action on insurers.
Similarly, auto insurers aren't in the business of road safety, and therefore we shouldn't pin even 1% of our hopes for road safety on them creating road safety either actively or passively, directly or indirectly. There are *already* built-in incentives for them to actively make the roads MORE dangerous for everyone: if they can make a dangerous driver pay sky high premiums, that's better than ensuring that this driver gets off the road, right? Insurance companies will not save us from dangerous drivers, because that is not the business they are in.
The anger against insurance companies is not misplaced. They are the right people to be mad at in this thread. Keep your eyes on the ball here. They want your data for profit reasons, NOT for road safety reasons. That is objectively and 100% a bad thing.
posted by MiraK at 12:09 PM on March 12 [12 favorites]
the insurance companies would be more than thrilled that you're willing to believe it is so that you'll help provide cover for the latter.
This is funny to me because I literally make my living fighting (health) insurance companies.
I also have concerns about the collection of data. I don’t dismiss those dangers out of hand and have expressed some of them on this very website. But I feel like there is a ton of cognitive dissonance, supported by a century of auto industry propaganda, that causes people to over-identify with their automobiles in ways that have harmed our bodies, our streets and neighborhoods, and our planet. And I think some of the comments in this thread are exactly what the auto industry would love people to say.
If I had my way, this is not how I would work to achieve safer driver behavior, but at the same time I don’t think that the dangers of this outweigh the human carnage of the current automobile culture.
posted by gauche at 12:10 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
This is funny to me because I literally make my living fighting (health) insurance companies.
I also have concerns about the collection of data. I don’t dismiss those dangers out of hand and have expressed some of them on this very website. But I feel like there is a ton of cognitive dissonance, supported by a century of auto industry propaganda, that causes people to over-identify with their automobiles in ways that have harmed our bodies, our streets and neighborhoods, and our planet. And I think some of the comments in this thread are exactly what the auto industry would love people to say.
If I had my way, this is not how I would work to achieve safer driver behavior, but at the same time I don’t think that the dangers of this outweigh the human carnage of the current automobile culture.
posted by gauche at 12:10 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Car makers don't care if you speed. Car makers are likely to find a way to put ads on the touch screen, so you get a notice when you're near Taco Bell after driving less than sober from a bar.
no, I don't want my insurance company or anybody else tracking me this way.
posted by theora55 at 12:11 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
no, I don't want my insurance company or anybody else tracking me this way.
posted by theora55 at 12:11 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Gauche, do we have any evidence that this data being collected automatically by our cars is being used to make people safer? Or are you just assuming it will surely be used that way?
I'd be in favor of any amount of data collection in cars if there were laws saying that data MUST be used to make roads safer in measurable ways. But car companies are collecting this data to show you ads. Often they want to show you ads while you are driving, which makes driving objectively less safe. They have no interest in road safety, because that's not the business they're in. They won't use the data to make roads safer unless they are forced to, by law. And we have no such law.
> The thing about police states is
and the worst part is: this isn't even the police STATE. It's a police CORPORATION. Zero accountability or transparency.
posted by MiraK at 12:15 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
I'd be in favor of any amount of data collection in cars if there were laws saying that data MUST be used to make roads safer in measurable ways. But car companies are collecting this data to show you ads. Often they want to show you ads while you are driving, which makes driving objectively less safe. They have no interest in road safety, because that's not the business they're in. They won't use the data to make roads safer unless they are forced to, by law. And we have no such law.
> The thing about police states is
and the worst part is: this isn't even the police STATE. It's a police CORPORATION. Zero accountability or transparency.
posted by MiraK at 12:15 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
They are selling it to insurance companies who are using it to build risk profiles. I’ll admit I do not see in the article that insurance companies are closing the loop with drivers on how their behavior is causing them to be higher or lower risk, which I agree would be needed to use this data to change driver behavior.
posted by gauche at 12:23 PM on March 12
posted by gauche at 12:23 PM on March 12
The error rate is so big on this its functionally useless and lacks information.
Well of course!
...but that has never stopped data brokers from just repackaging and reselling the same incorrect data, and once it pops up in a couple different places now it's "verified" (as in that Simpsons joke about journalism "confirmation" being where two different people say they heard the same third person make an unsourced claim, so now that claim is confirmed and must be true).
Nobody involved in this chain really gives a shit if the information is accurate, as long as it can be sold to someone else who thinks it might be accurate "enough". Truth is entirely irrelevant.
posted by aramaic at 12:29 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
Well of course!
...but that has never stopped data brokers from just repackaging and reselling the same incorrect data, and once it pops up in a couple different places now it's "verified" (as in that Simpsons joke about journalism "confirmation" being where two different people say they heard the same third person make an unsourced claim, so now that claim is confirmed and must be true).
Nobody involved in this chain really gives a shit if the information is accurate, as long as it can be sold to someone else who thinks it might be accurate "enough". Truth is entirely irrelevant.
posted by aramaic at 12:29 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
mildly inaccurate data can still be used in combination with other known pieces of data to uniquely identify people. frequently those other pieces of data seem relatively innocuous / are relatively non-identifying when taken by themselves.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:32 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:32 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
> They are selling it to insurance companies who are using it to build risk profiles.
Insurance companies have no incentive to use these risk profiles to promote road safety. For example it is more profitable for them to make any given dangerous driver (and that driver's whole pool) pay sky high premiums, than to ensure that this dangerous driver gets off the road. This is what you are missing, gauche: your assumption that this data is being used to make roads safer is plain wrong. This data is being used to make roads more dangerous, if anything, in a multitude of ways.
posted by MiraK at 12:42 PM on March 12 [6 favorites]
Insurance companies have no incentive to use these risk profiles to promote road safety. For example it is more profitable for them to make any given dangerous driver (and that driver's whole pool) pay sky high premiums, than to ensure that this dangerous driver gets off the road. This is what you are missing, gauche: your assumption that this data is being used to make roads safer is plain wrong. This data is being used to make roads more dangerous, if anything, in a multitude of ways.
posted by MiraK at 12:42 PM on March 12 [6 favorites]
"And I think some of the comments in this thread are exactly what the auto industry would love people to say."
And I think your very emphatic hatred of car culture - which may be somewhat justified - is causing you to lose sight of the dangers of surveillance capitalism.
You've made several arguments that people have no expectation of privacy when operating a vehicle. The difference between expecting privacy in public and being continually surveilled in public, especially when it's by a private business doing so without any awareness on your part and then passing it on to another entity -- is enormous.
Yes, we all have smartphones and things that do some of this - and most of us hate it and would like to see it end, not suffer *more* of that. This practice is not going to make anyone safer, it will make insurance companies more money, and it will be yet another tool for large companies and the government to use against people. I'm sorry to inform you that there are no quick fixes for all of the problems that cars pose in our culture, but this not only fails to be a quick fix - it simply puts a little dollop of shit on top of the vast shit sundae, but it (apparently) seems appealing to you because it might punish people operating cars.
posted by jzb at 12:46 PM on March 12 [10 favorites]
And I think your very emphatic hatred of car culture - which may be somewhat justified - is causing you to lose sight of the dangers of surveillance capitalism.
You've made several arguments that people have no expectation of privacy when operating a vehicle. The difference between expecting privacy in public and being continually surveilled in public, especially when it's by a private business doing so without any awareness on your part and then passing it on to another entity -- is enormous.
Yes, we all have smartphones and things that do some of this - and most of us hate it and would like to see it end, not suffer *more* of that. This practice is not going to make anyone safer, it will make insurance companies more money, and it will be yet another tool for large companies and the government to use against people. I'm sorry to inform you that there are no quick fixes for all of the problems that cars pose in our culture, but this not only fails to be a quick fix - it simply puts a little dollop of shit on top of the vast shit sundae, but it (apparently) seems appealing to you because it might punish people operating cars.
posted by jzb at 12:46 PM on March 12 [10 favorites]
The only position I’ve affirmatively taken in this thread is that I don’t think you can have privacy doing something in plain view on public property. Nobody has yet explained how this can be.
I’ll concede that there is _something_ worrisome about the aggregation of data, and I’m not saying there are no dangers inherent in surveillance capitalism. I’m just saying, if you’re doing something with your body or an object on the street, in what way can that activity be thought of as private?
posted by gauche at 12:53 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
I’ll concede that there is _something_ worrisome about the aggregation of data, and I’m not saying there are no dangers inherent in surveillance capitalism. I’m just saying, if you’re doing something with your body or an object on the street, in what way can that activity be thought of as private?
posted by gauche at 12:53 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
> I’m just saying, if you’re doing something with your body or an object on the street, in what way can that activity be thought of as private?
Are you just asking that as an intellectual exercise in a vacuum? Or does your interest in this question have something to do with the topic of this thread?
(I'm not asking in a snarky way I promise!)
posted by MiraK at 1:05 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
Are you just asking that as an intellectual exercise in a vacuum? Or does your interest in this question have something to do with the topic of this thread?
(I'm not asking in a snarky way I promise!)
posted by MiraK at 1:05 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
The only position I’ve affirmatively taken in this thread is that I don’t think you can have privacy doing something in plain view on public property. Nobody has yet explained how this can be.
There is a distinction between having privacy and not being actively surveilled. Technology permits both a greater level of consistency in collecting information and a much larger capacity to disseminate it once it is captured. I don't think we want to turn every public space into a free for all for stalking and recording strangers.
Also, as much as we act as if driving is a personal lifestyle choice, it just isn't. For many people in many places, driving is an absolute necessity that we sometimes have to engage in for hours every day. Being continuously surveilled during that period by people who are largely hostile to our long term welfare isn't likely to enthuse anybody.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:06 PM on March 12 [12 favorites]
There is a distinction between having privacy and not being actively surveilled. Technology permits both a greater level of consistency in collecting information and a much larger capacity to disseminate it once it is captured. I don't think we want to turn every public space into a free for all for stalking and recording strangers.
Also, as much as we act as if driving is a personal lifestyle choice, it just isn't. For many people in many places, driving is an absolute necessity that we sometimes have to engage in for hours every day. Being continuously surveilled during that period by people who are largely hostile to our long term welfare isn't likely to enthuse anybody.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:06 PM on March 12 [12 favorites]
So what’s the solution?
I don’t think self driving cars are the route to go. Wouldn't they have the same surveillance issues if not worse because of how they work? We know schooling doesn’t work. That’s what happens right now and it’s obvious people know they shouldn’t do certain things already. I doubt sitting them down in a chair to watch videos is going to make a difference, people know what stop signs mean.
Obviously there isn’t some fast and easy answer but where do we start?
posted by JakeEXTREME at 1:06 PM on March 12
I don’t think self driving cars are the route to go. Wouldn't they have the same surveillance issues if not worse because of how they work? We know schooling doesn’t work. That’s what happens right now and it’s obvious people know they shouldn’t do certain things already. I doubt sitting them down in a chair to watch videos is going to make a difference, people know what stop signs mean.
Obviously there isn’t some fast and easy answer but where do we start?
posted by JakeEXTREME at 1:06 PM on March 12
There's a difference between someone seeing you drive by and someone following you around as you drive with a camera on you the whole time, aggregating that video and selling it to a third party. If you can't see that you're being willfully obtuse.
posted by Ferreous at 1:07 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 1:07 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
Nobody involved in this chain really gives a shit if the information is accurate, as long as it can be sold to someone else who thinks it might be accurate "enough". Truth is entirely irrelevant.
But it actually does matter? If someone Nissan generates a random string of 1s and 0s and says, these 1s indicate our users who are fucking in our cars, how is that an invasion of privacy?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:07 PM on March 12
But it actually does matter? If someone Nissan generates a random string of 1s and 0s and says, these 1s indicate our users who are fucking in our cars, how is that an invasion of privacy?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:07 PM on March 12
Privacy isn't a binary. Things aren't "public knowledge" or "forbidden secrets". Privacy is something you have from another party. Many things about an individual should be kept private from for-profit corporitaions (i.e. they should be prevented from collected , even if that information isn't hidden.
Cory Doctorow was chiming in (as he does), and reminded me that the last time a consumer privacy law was passed was in 1988!
(Another thing mentioned in his newsletter, since it's come up in this thread is the "black box" that insurers offer in exchange for a discount - they'll be taking and selling that information regardless of wheither or not you've signed up for it.)
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 1:11 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Cory Doctorow was chiming in (as he does), and reminded me that the last time a consumer privacy law was passed was in 1988!
(Another thing mentioned in his newsletter, since it's come up in this thread is the "black box" that insurers offer in exchange for a discount - they'll be taking and selling that information regardless of wheither or not you've signed up for it.)
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 1:11 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Obviously there isn’t some fast and easy answer but where do we start?
Like, I am 1000% against this insurance company surveillance bullshit, but I would have no issue with a speed limiter on cars, even if it was just a simple top-speed limit. These systems are flagging people going over 80mph; even on the interstate, there's not going to be a need for going that fast except in rare instances. So maybe you can exceed the speed, but an alarm sounds and there are flashing lights and after a reasonable time interval the car slows itself down.
There are tons of these kinds of solutions that could be implemented transparently and with the consent of drivers. Not an easy sell, obviously. There are also road calming techniques, particularly in towns and cities that could make a demonstrable difference right away if we prioritized the funding for this kind of thing in our infrastructure planning. Even dropping speed limits! My town has residential streets with 35 mph limits, I can drive perfectly legally on those streets at that speed and be vastly more likely to kill a pedestrian than if the limit was 25 instead. Yes, people will still speed, but maybe now they'll go 30 instead of 40 and we will save lives.
So there's lots we can do other than allowing insurance companies to screw people over for profit.
posted by dellsolace at 1:15 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
Like, I am 1000% against this insurance company surveillance bullshit, but I would have no issue with a speed limiter on cars, even if it was just a simple top-speed limit. These systems are flagging people going over 80mph; even on the interstate, there's not going to be a need for going that fast except in rare instances. So maybe you can exceed the speed, but an alarm sounds and there are flashing lights and after a reasonable time interval the car slows itself down.
There are tons of these kinds of solutions that could be implemented transparently and with the consent of drivers. Not an easy sell, obviously. There are also road calming techniques, particularly in towns and cities that could make a demonstrable difference right away if we prioritized the funding for this kind of thing in our infrastructure planning. Even dropping speed limits! My town has residential streets with 35 mph limits, I can drive perfectly legally on those streets at that speed and be vastly more likely to kill a pedestrian than if the limit was 25 instead. Yes, people will still speed, but maybe now they'll go 30 instead of 40 and we will save lives.
So there's lots we can do other than allowing insurance companies to screw people over for profit.
posted by dellsolace at 1:15 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
gauche... a scenario...
you live in Texas
where they have or are trying to make it illegal to travel to other states for abortions
you or a female friend of yours needs an abortion
you drive to a neighboring state where you can do that
maybe some people see you drive there
but they don't care because you're just another car on the road... they don't know you're driving to get an abortion
Texas however will likely be getting data keyed to abortion clinics in neighboring states and now has evidence to charge you with a crime
now apply this to trans people needing health care, people with disabilities trying to get cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico, immigrants
do you see how this gets bad quickly?
maybe you're a person who thinks those results ate a good thing? if so, I'd ask you to extend grace to others who may have needs you do not
posted by kokaku at 1:19 PM on March 12 [14 favorites]
you live in Texas
where they have or are trying to make it illegal to travel to other states for abortions
you or a female friend of yours needs an abortion
you drive to a neighboring state where you can do that
maybe some people see you drive there
but they don't care because you're just another car on the road... they don't know you're driving to get an abortion
Texas however will likely be getting data keyed to abortion clinics in neighboring states and now has evidence to charge you with a crime
now apply this to trans people needing health care, people with disabilities trying to get cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico, immigrants
do you see how this gets bad quickly?
maybe you're a person who thinks those results ate a good thing? if so, I'd ask you to extend grace to others who may have needs you do not
posted by kokaku at 1:19 PM on March 12 [14 favorites]
> So what’s the solution?
the solution is for cars to not do that.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:21 PM on March 12 [8 favorites]
the solution is for cars to not do that.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:21 PM on March 12 [8 favorites]
> But it actually does matter? If someone Nissan generates a random string of 1s and 0s and says, these 1s indicate our users who are fucking in our cars, how is that an invasion of privacy?
Can the random string of 1s and 0s be correlated back to real raw data? If so, it's obviously an invasion of privacy. If not, and the buyer knows it can't, it's worthless and nobody will buy it because it is indistinguishable from fake (e.g. AI-generated) stories. If not, and you're fooling the buyer into thinking it can be verified as real data by someone (or some computer) somewhere, congratulations on your successful grift! Use AI generated fake data it's even more profitable!
posted by MiraK at 1:23 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
Can the random string of 1s and 0s be correlated back to real raw data? If so, it's obviously an invasion of privacy. If not, and the buyer knows it can't, it's worthless and nobody will buy it because it is indistinguishable from fake (e.g. AI-generated) stories. If not, and you're fooling the buyer into thinking it can be verified as real data by someone (or some computer) somewhere, congratulations on your successful grift! Use AI generated fake data it's even more profitable!
posted by MiraK at 1:23 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
The opt out process with Lexus-Nexus Risk Management Solutions is documented on their website. It is pretty limited unless you are a cop, politician or other covered person; although if you live in California you get additional options.
Going down the rabbit hole further you can go to individual manufacturers sites to see if you have additional options. Some examples
- Ford
- GM
- Subaru
posted by interogative mood at 1:33 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
Going down the rabbit hole further you can go to individual manufacturers sites to see if you have additional options. Some examples
- Ford
- GM
- Subaru
posted by interogative mood at 1:33 PM on March 12 [4 favorites]
If I scrupulously drive the speed limit on my highway commute into downtown, I will be rammed. If I conform to the traffic conditions, I will need to exceed the posted speed limit -- but I will not be roiling the traffic, and so arguably will be driving more safely.
Another point: a passive watcher cannot really tell what speed I am going when I am in the flow of traffic, without either realtime GPS position data (from the car) or a radar gun.
And what happens when I am taking a kid with a broken leg to urgent care? (Not a theoretical: urgent care just says, "we can x-ray it for you, but you really have to go to the ER. Better hurry.")
In any of these situations, "just seeing me drive" isn't a clue to what I am doing or why.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:48 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
Another point: a passive watcher cannot really tell what speed I am going when I am in the flow of traffic, without either realtime GPS position data (from the car) or a radar gun.
And what happens when I am taking a kid with a broken leg to urgent care? (Not a theoretical: urgent care just says, "we can x-ray it for you, but you really have to go to the ER. Better hurry.")
In any of these situations, "just seeing me drive" isn't a clue to what I am doing or why.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:48 PM on March 12 [11 favorites]
Can the random string of 1s and 0s be correlated back to real raw data? If so, it's obviously an invasion of privacy
Then the issue is that car companies are selling the data, not that they know when you are having sex (they don’t)
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:39 PM on March 12
Then the issue is that car companies are selling the data, not that they know when you are having sex (they don’t)
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:39 PM on March 12
If I scrupulously drive the speed limit on my highway commute into downtown, I will be rammed. If I conform to the traffic conditions, I will need to exceed the posted speed limit -- but I will not be roiling the traffic, and so arguably will be driving more safely.
Also true on my commute - which includes an 8-lane highway with a median where the posted limit is 55 but everybody drives 70. The speed limit is not 55 because that's the speed at which it's safe to drive, but so that the town can set up speed traps and charge people a bunch of money.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:44 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
Also true on my commute - which includes an 8-lane highway with a median where the posted limit is 55 but everybody drives 70. The speed limit is not 55 because that's the speed at which it's safe to drive, but so that the town can set up speed traps and charge people a bunch of money.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:44 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
the problem:
i am going to work on the provisional assumption that people who don't see this are either employees of companies that get their money from advertising or people who don't do nearly as much crime as they should or both, because i have many troubles modeling the minds of people who don't see this
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:48 PM on March 12 [16 favorites]
- folks are gathering data
- folks are retaining data
- folks are selling data
i am going to work on the provisional assumption that people who don't see this are either employees of companies that get their money from advertising or people who don't do nearly as much crime as they should or both, because i have many troubles modeling the minds of people who don't see this
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:48 PM on March 12 [16 favorites]
There has been no traffic enforcement by police here in Seattle since COVID and the cops getting their undies in a bunch about the George Floyd protests. So people are going to speed.
All the good "Law and Order" republicans I have ever known sped like crazy, and did things to avoid getting radared and busted. That's America though, (these were all white people).
EDIT: And this tracking is bad. I won't let my EV do "Mobile Access", (mostly because my phone falls out of my pocket a lot, and don't want someone to be able to just drive it away), but also for the tracking.
I can grab my phone right now and see where my wife's car is, how fast it is going, and what is playing on the radio. Creepy as fortold.
posted by Windopaene at 2:50 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
All the good "Law and Order" republicans I have ever known sped like crazy, and did things to avoid getting radared and busted. That's America though, (these were all white people).
EDIT: And this tracking is bad. I won't let my EV do "Mobile Access", (mostly because my phone falls out of my pocket a lot, and don't want someone to be able to just drive it away), but also for the tracking.
I can grab my phone right now and see where my wife's car is, how fast it is going, and what is playing on the radio. Creepy as fortold.
posted by Windopaene at 2:50 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
On the coast in Oregon, 66mph (speeding!), Dang! by Mac Miller
So creepy
posted by Windopaene at 2:57 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
So creepy
posted by Windopaene at 2:57 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
And this is even weirder to me. Child 3 on the trip with Ms. Windo, left her used Chevy EV here, asked me to charge it before she got back. Found her fob, and parked it in our garage, where we have a charger. Shows me when it will be done charging.
Bit later my phone sends me some notifications, but I ignore them for a bit. Finally go look, and it tells me that charging will be complete as the time her car told me it would be???
IN an app I have never seen before. Did my charging unit know who I am through the router, but my phone has never talked to this car, did the car random bluetooth every thing it could find nearby? So bizarre.
posted by Windopaene at 3:18 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
Bit later my phone sends me some notifications, but I ignore them for a bit. Finally go look, and it tells me that charging will be complete as the time her car told me it would be???
IN an app I have never seen before. Did my charging unit know who I am through the router, but my phone has never talked to this car, did the car random bluetooth every thing it could find nearby? So bizarre.
posted by Windopaene at 3:18 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
I’m just saying, if you’re doing something with your body or an object on the street, in what way can that activity be thought of as private?
If you’re really interested, I’d be happy to write a longer answer about 4th amendment criminal defense answers and harms, but the short version is anything that can be created by a corporation can be business records that can be used against you in criminal court and maybe we shouldn’t be rushing to create surveillance the police will 10000% use against the poor.
But man, I guess I’ll be getting old cars for the next ten years or so until this shit is made illegal.
bombastic pronouncements is as usual correct.
posted by corb at 3:30 PM on March 12 [20 favorites]
If you’re really interested, I’d be happy to write a longer answer about 4th amendment criminal defense answers and harms, but the short version is anything that can be created by a corporation can be business records that can be used against you in criminal court and maybe we shouldn’t be rushing to create surveillance the police will 10000% use against the poor.
But man, I guess I’ll be getting old cars for the next ten years or so until this shit is made illegal.
bombastic pronouncements is as usual correct.
posted by corb at 3:30 PM on March 12 [20 favorites]
Obviously there isn’t some fast and easy answer but where do we start?
As another posted mentioned upthread, there are quite a lot of well-researched, evidence-based structural ways to get drivers to drive more safely including narrower lanes, bump-outs on residential streets, etc. Also, smaller vehicles. As I understand it, traffic injuries and fatalities have risen recently in the US after decades of decline from the pre-seat belt days, and that is largely due to (1) obscenely large vehicles, and (2) roadway/traffic design that prioritizes driving, and specifically that prioritizes driving fast. There are so, so many non-surveillance options that have a very long track record of success in every other part of the world as well as in many communities within the US. How about we work on some of those, and maybe build some transportation infrastructure that makes having a car not a necessity in most parts of North America before we reach for unregulated and secretive surveillance that isn’t even directly intended to improve road safety?
posted by eviemath at 3:37 PM on March 12 [9 favorites]
As another posted mentioned upthread, there are quite a lot of well-researched, evidence-based structural ways to get drivers to drive more safely including narrower lanes, bump-outs on residential streets, etc. Also, smaller vehicles. As I understand it, traffic injuries and fatalities have risen recently in the US after decades of decline from the pre-seat belt days, and that is largely due to (1) obscenely large vehicles, and (2) roadway/traffic design that prioritizes driving, and specifically that prioritizes driving fast. There are so, so many non-surveillance options that have a very long track record of success in every other part of the world as well as in many communities within the US. How about we work on some of those, and maybe build some transportation infrastructure that makes having a car not a necessity in most parts of North America before we reach for unregulated and secretive surveillance that isn’t even directly intended to improve road safety?
posted by eviemath at 3:37 PM on March 12 [9 favorites]
I've voluntarily had one of these devices installed, and here are my thoughts based on that:
It did lower my insurance rates.
It did not report GPS data (which seems to be what all the privacy complaints in this thread are about).
I don't like that it dings hard braking. IMHO a driver should never be disincentivized against braking hard or have any hesitation to do so when needed (other than checking for vehicles behind you, but the device isn't noting that). I don't have a problem with recording speed and positive acceleration.
Some of the other data points recorded, like time of day, will penalize night shift workers and taxi drivers. So we need to at least consider that.
Insurance rates currently are based on a bunch of things a person cannot control, such as sex, age, zip code. That feels less fair than driving behavior.
All in all, I think it's ok to gather this data as long as it's regulated by the government to prohibit the gathering of GPS and braking data. But I don't think it'll stop rich/middle-class people or risk-taking people from driving badly.
The fact is that cars kill. They are deadly machines whose damage we ignore because of capitalism. We need to emphasize and fund noncar public infrastructure, in place of the current system of massive subsidies and priority for car infrastructure. We can't rely on capitalist penny pinching to create safety for us. But this tech is not as bad as people in the comments are making it out to be.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:41 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
It did lower my insurance rates.
It did not report GPS data (which seems to be what all the privacy complaints in this thread are about).
I don't like that it dings hard braking. IMHO a driver should never be disincentivized against braking hard or have any hesitation to do so when needed (other than checking for vehicles behind you, but the device isn't noting that). I don't have a problem with recording speed and positive acceleration.
Some of the other data points recorded, like time of day, will penalize night shift workers and taxi drivers. So we need to at least consider that.
Insurance rates currently are based on a bunch of things a person cannot control, such as sex, age, zip code. That feels less fair than driving behavior.
All in all, I think it's ok to gather this data as long as it's regulated by the government to prohibit the gathering of GPS and braking data. But I don't think it'll stop rich/middle-class people or risk-taking people from driving badly.
The fact is that cars kill. They are deadly machines whose damage we ignore because of capitalism. We need to emphasize and fund noncar public infrastructure, in place of the current system of massive subsidies and priority for car infrastructure. We can't rely on capitalist penny pinching to create safety for us. But this tech is not as bad as people in the comments are making it out to be.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:41 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
I think the old data collection methods insurance agencies use to determine risk profiles were good enough. Where the rubber hits the road is "how frequently does a driver have at fault crashes?" To a lesser extent, how many tickets? What kind of driving is safe depends on driver skill, the vehicle's capabilities, the driving environment (which changes dynamically moment-to-moment etc.)
Out of context data feels like it can be so easily abused or misinterpreted. For example, executing a safe merge onto a busy highway with a modestly powered car will often involve accelerating at full throttle. By the data, the person who attempts to merge driving at 50% of the speed of traffic is "safe" and the person who floors it to match the flow of traffic without cutting anyone off is "reckless."
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:03 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
Out of context data feels like it can be so easily abused or misinterpreted. For example, executing a safe merge onto a busy highway with a modestly powered car will often involve accelerating at full throttle. By the data, the person who attempts to merge driving at 50% of the speed of traffic is "safe" and the person who floors it to match the flow of traffic without cutting anyone off is "reckless."
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:03 PM on March 12 [5 favorites]
> It did not report GPS data (which seems to be what all the privacy complaints in this thread are about).
i can think of ways to infer location based on the other pieces of data gathered, even if data about how you turn the steering wheel isn't included. and i'm not even a smart person.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:23 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
i can think of ways to infer location based on the other pieces of data gathered, even if data about how you turn the steering wheel isn't included. and i'm not even a smart person.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:23 PM on March 12 [7 favorites]
Then the issue is that car companies are selling the data, not that they know when you are having sex (they don’t)
Again, though, it doesn’t matter if they guess wrong. Yes, you are right, it is better if they don’t sell the so-called “information” but it would be better if it were never gathered in the first place.
It matters what assholes are gonna do with the so-called “information”.
Thank you for attending this meeting of the Texas legislative assembly.
Our legally-acquired data (note: not hearsay, but “data”) indicates that you had sex in your car with an unidentified person (oooo, salacious!) no more than fifteen minutes after driving past a school at 15mph. Suspiciously slowly! Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Martian Child Sex Cult as foretold by QAnon? Ken Paxton will now make the opening prayer, followed by an hour of blustering while you are not allowed to complete a sentence. For those following along online, your home address will shortly be published in the legislative record.
posted by aramaic at 7:05 PM on March 12 [8 favorites]
Again, though, it doesn’t matter if they guess wrong. Yes, you are right, it is better if they don’t sell the so-called “information” but it would be better if it were never gathered in the first place.
It matters what assholes are gonna do with the so-called “information”.
Thank you for attending this meeting of the Texas legislative assembly.
Our legally-acquired data (note: not hearsay, but “data”) indicates that you had sex in your car with an unidentified person (oooo, salacious!) no more than fifteen minutes after driving past a school at 15mph. Suspiciously slowly! Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Martian Child Sex Cult as foretold by QAnon? Ken Paxton will now make the opening prayer, followed by an hour of blustering while you are not allowed to complete a sentence. For those following along online, your home address will shortly be published in the legislative record.
posted by aramaic at 7:05 PM on March 12 [8 favorites]
Maybe panty-sniffing bucket seats will become standard equipment soon.
I wonder if I could fool the data collection mechanism into thinking I'm getting laid far more often than I really am.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:12 PM on March 12
I wonder if I could fool the data collection mechanism into thinking I'm getting laid far more often than I really am.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:12 PM on March 12
I took a break from this thread but there are a handful of questions directed at me so I will do my best to address them.
I didn't express it clearly, but I don't think it can be denied that the ship has pretty much sailed on constant surveillance already. This is NOT to say that surveillance is a good thing but rather that your data is already out there in the hands of publicly traded companies. Netflix already knows if you're trans. Amazon already knows what sort of soap to sell to people who stopped watching Saltburn before the first act break. Gmail already has all of your correspondence, because even if you use Protonmail, all of your friends use Gmail. Your credit card company can recreate exactly what you did on the Tuesday of your last vacation. The phone company already knows where you are and where you've been. If none of this were so, if the first salvo of big data were cars collecting information and turning it over to insurance companies, that would be one thing, but it's not.
Given this, given that we allow and welcome and indeed pay for companies to surveil us in our homes and bedrooms, the places where privacy is most unquestionably supposed to exist, it seems weird to me for people to be this concerned about privacy in terms of actions which are taken in full public view when they are operating a vehicle that is required by law to have a visible, government-issued, unique identifier, and that the government already has the right to dictate how you operate it with a high degree of specificity. Oh, and that kills more people than guns.
In terms of reducing traffic violence, as I have said above this would not be my first choice either, but I also don't see a lot of movement or political will to doing the things that actually need to be done, and I am active in working on these things in a reliably blue state. Charging bad drivers more in insurance is an imperfect tool, but an imperfect tool that already exists is better than a perfect solution that doesn't.
Could this data be abused? Yes, absolutely. But over 40,000 people were killed by traffic violence in the U.S. last year, and that is also abuse that is actively taking place. It does not seem to me unreasonable to balance this carnage against the possibility -- in my view remote -- that the collection of this particular data will produce any abuses, at all, that could not already be visited upon, for instance, marginalized people using data that is already being aggregated and collected and bought and sold.
posted by gauche at 7:47 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
I didn't express it clearly, but I don't think it can be denied that the ship has pretty much sailed on constant surveillance already. This is NOT to say that surveillance is a good thing but rather that your data is already out there in the hands of publicly traded companies. Netflix already knows if you're trans. Amazon already knows what sort of soap to sell to people who stopped watching Saltburn before the first act break. Gmail already has all of your correspondence, because even if you use Protonmail, all of your friends use Gmail. Your credit card company can recreate exactly what you did on the Tuesday of your last vacation. The phone company already knows where you are and where you've been. If none of this were so, if the first salvo of big data were cars collecting information and turning it over to insurance companies, that would be one thing, but it's not.
Given this, given that we allow and welcome and indeed pay for companies to surveil us in our homes and bedrooms, the places where privacy is most unquestionably supposed to exist, it seems weird to me for people to be this concerned about privacy in terms of actions which are taken in full public view when they are operating a vehicle that is required by law to have a visible, government-issued, unique identifier, and that the government already has the right to dictate how you operate it with a high degree of specificity. Oh, and that kills more people than guns.
In terms of reducing traffic violence, as I have said above this would not be my first choice either, but I also don't see a lot of movement or political will to doing the things that actually need to be done, and I am active in working on these things in a reliably blue state. Charging bad drivers more in insurance is an imperfect tool, but an imperfect tool that already exists is better than a perfect solution that doesn't.
Could this data be abused? Yes, absolutely. But over 40,000 people were killed by traffic violence in the U.S. last year, and that is also abuse that is actively taking place. It does not seem to me unreasonable to balance this carnage against the possibility -- in my view remote -- that the collection of this particular data will produce any abuses, at all, that could not already be visited upon, for instance, marginalized people using data that is already being aggregated and collected and bought and sold.
posted by gauche at 7:47 PM on March 12 [2 favorites]
So, one possible collateral positive to this is that workers (which is what drivers are) could vote with their feet as the insurance costs mount up.
First of all, the cost of public safety shouldn’t be totally on drivers. This is, like all other corporate bullshit, an unfair externalization of expenses that really should be managed structurally. We could have functional, efficient public transit. We could have better structures about who actually has to report to a worksite and whose job can be done remotely. We could be more realistic and reasonable about time-shifting people’s work hours, in person and remote, to moderate the traffic load on roads. Workers aren’t responsible for any of that, but it’s all been externalizer onto us because it’s insanely profitable for many, many massive industries.
The annual cost of operating even a wholly owned used car isn’t less than $5,000/yr (probably more bc I haven’t done this math in a decade) and the cost of operating a car with payments is much more. Most people would be willing to use transit if it were actually functional, efficient, and cost effective for them, and maybe a financial and social insult like this would be the catalyst.
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:55 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
First of all, the cost of public safety shouldn’t be totally on drivers. This is, like all other corporate bullshit, an unfair externalization of expenses that really should be managed structurally. We could have functional, efficient public transit. We could have better structures about who actually has to report to a worksite and whose job can be done remotely. We could be more realistic and reasonable about time-shifting people’s work hours, in person and remote, to moderate the traffic load on roads. Workers aren’t responsible for any of that, but it’s all been externalizer onto us because it’s insanely profitable for many, many massive industries.
The annual cost of operating even a wholly owned used car isn’t less than $5,000/yr (probably more bc I haven’t done this math in a decade) and the cost of operating a car with payments is much more. Most people would be willing to use transit if it were actually functional, efficient, and cost effective for them, and maybe a financial and social insult like this would be the catalyst.
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:55 PM on March 12 [3 favorites]
Yeah no, my rates went up by 25% last year, and I make a game out of trying to drive like I'm in the driver's test, following 100% of the rules 100% of the time.
posted by ctmf at 2:48 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 2:48 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
gauche, none of that is a response to questions directed at you, you've just repeated your original positions like a catechism. You were plenty clear about them from the start, we all understood you perfectly the first time. Maybe you can respond to some of the rebuttals people have presented?
posted by MiraK at 3:00 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 3:00 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
And hey, looks like this isn’t theoretical: LexisNexis cooperates with ICE.
ICE agents can also bring the car-tracking tech on the road through a dedicated smartphone app that allows them to, with only a few taps, snap a picture of someone’s plate to automatically place them on the watchlist. Once a plate of interest is snapped and uploaded, ICE agents then need only to wait for a convenient push notification informing them that there’s been activity detected about the car.posted by corb at 3:31 AM on March 13 [13 favorites]
I will need to exceed the posted speed limit -- but I will not be roiling the traffic
I won't either. My car spends 80-ish percent of its running life on cruise control at the speed limit on the highway. If there's any "roiling" going on, it's the fault of everyone trying to speed, not me. Don't be blaming me for that, I refuse to feel bad about it.
(I'm in the slow lane except to pass an even slower person, though, not a left lane camper)
posted by ctmf at 3:43 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
I won't either. My car spends 80-ish percent of its running life on cruise control at the speed limit on the highway. If there's any "roiling" going on, it's the fault of everyone trying to speed, not me. Don't be blaming me for that, I refuse to feel bad about it.
(I'm in the slow lane except to pass an even slower person, though, not a left lane camper)
posted by ctmf at 3:43 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
But even I speed briefly to merge safely, before slowing down to the speed I want to drive. Guess I'm going to get dinged by my car's internal hall monitor someday.
posted by ctmf at 3:52 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
posted by ctmf at 3:52 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
"ICE agents can also bring the car-tracking tech on the road through a dedicated smartphone app"
Wow! Hate this!
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:06 AM on March 13 [4 favorites]
Wow! Hate this!
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 6:06 AM on March 13 [4 favorites]
Also when the fuck did Drivers Ed disappear from schools?
The day after the first private driver training company opened shop.
I doubt that very much since in 1996 when I had driver's ed, private companies already existed for teaching driving and had for a while. This also isn't a problem with private companies but with schools and taxpayers not wanting to pay for driver's education.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:17 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
The day after the first private driver training company opened shop.
I doubt that very much since in 1996 when I had driver's ed, private companies already existed for teaching driving and had for a while. This also isn't a problem with private companies but with schools and taxpayers not wanting to pay for driver's education.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:17 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
My insurance went up by 25% this year (and I shopped around to make sure it wasn't just my company). My spouse and I are both drivers with 100% clean records, no teen driver in the house, and cars that are more than 10 years old that do not have tracking devices in them. BUT, I was helpfully told by the customer service agent, if I wanted to sign up for their special program to put their tracking device on my app, then I would be eligible for the 'discount' that would return my price to near the original amount. I am now being penalized for not wanting a tracking device in my car or a tracking device on my cell phone.
posted by bq at 11:46 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
posted by bq at 11:46 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
> It did not report GPS data (which seems to be what all the privacy complaints in this thread are about).
You mean that’s what they told you.
posted by bq at 12:05 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
You mean that’s what they told you.
posted by bq at 12:05 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
The “no GPS” part may be weasel words. Phone location APIs can return fairly accurate locations using using IP-based location, dead reckoning from previous known locations using the accelerometer, etc. without actually asking for GPS location in the moment.
posted by mubba at 12:42 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
posted by mubba at 12:42 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
there’s even clever things you can do using just accelerometer data, no information about turns, and knowledge of the speed limits on roads in the area. something like “okay, you just accelerated to 70 from 30, you going 30ish until now is consistent with being at this particular southbound freeway entrance and no other freeway entrance, okay we know where you probably are and that you’re going southbound.” this feels like something that can be done kinda efficiently, it’s like some kinda weighted graph problem but i don’t remember my algorithms class well and i’m terrible at math.
oh shit and you can intuit turns maybe by looking for you slowing down and then speeding back up in places where you’d only slow down while turning. i am now both low-key obsessed with this and also bad at it, perfect recipe for wasting time to no end.
but anyway unless i’m mistaken, accelerometer + ip location might be pretty reliable. however i’m well out of my zone of expertise and don’t really know how ip address assignment works on modern mobile devices and so me being mistaken is likely though
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:38 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
oh shit and you can intuit turns maybe by looking for you slowing down and then speeding back up in places where you’d only slow down while turning. i am now both low-key obsessed with this and also bad at it, perfect recipe for wasting time to no end.
but anyway unless i’m mistaken, accelerometer + ip location might be pretty reliable. however i’m well out of my zone of expertise and don’t really know how ip address assignment works on modern mobile devices and so me being mistaken is likely though
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:38 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Heck I’m sure Waze is storing all their data. Just throw an AI at Waze + accelerometer for cursed fake GPS.
I was trying to figure out how to explain why this bothers me so much and I thought of an analogy. Do you remember this video that went viral several years ago of a lawyer giving a talk about why you should never, ever, ever talk to the police? Because there are a billion different ways that the police can take anything you say and twist it to use it against you in a prosecution, even if you think there’s no connection?
Giving access to this data to the authorities is effectively like talking to the police all the time.
posted by bq at 4:48 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
I was trying to figure out how to explain why this bothers me so much and I thought of an analogy. Do you remember this video that went viral several years ago of a lawyer giving a talk about why you should never, ever, ever talk to the police? Because there are a billion different ways that the police can take anything you say and twist it to use it against you in a prosecution, even if you think there’s no connection?
Giving access to this data to the authorities is effectively like talking to the police all the time.
posted by bq at 4:48 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
...much better would be mandating technology that would limit drivers' ability to speed.
I did not respond to this well. I'm not a fan of going fast, but sometimes it's necessary. e.g.-.... even I speed briefly to merge safely.
This is mentioned in the link- Sure, a driver passing a semitruck on an interstate might need to briefly break the posted limit.
So what if you need to speed up (or suddenly brake, as mentioned above)? Is this tech going to prevent you? In a link in the link, it says 'ISA systems do not automatically apply the brakes, but simply limit engine power preventing the vehicle from accelerating past the current speed limit unless overridden.'
What? That either means you can do whatever you want, or that you need to perform some unusual operation, in the middle of an emergency? (Probably through a touch screen, but now I'm ranting)
I like the fact that my new car says I'm crossing the center lines but doesn't prevent me. The car doesn't know what bikes or potholes or dead skunks I'm avoiding. Recently I got lane warnings when the car thought the snow was a lane marker. And if my insurance company raises my rates because I didn't want to hit a deer, they aren't looking at the best outcome.
If my car wants to create an annoying beeping when I'm exceeding the speed limit, I guess I'm fine with that. But the newer cars I've been driving have demonstrated repeatedly that they have a limited understanding of the whole picture.
posted by MtDewd at 4:55 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I did not respond to this well. I'm not a fan of going fast, but sometimes it's necessary. e.g.-.... even I speed briefly to merge safely.
This is mentioned in the link- Sure, a driver passing a semitruck on an interstate might need to briefly break the posted limit.
So what if you need to speed up (or suddenly brake, as mentioned above)? Is this tech going to prevent you? In a link in the link, it says 'ISA systems do not automatically apply the brakes, but simply limit engine power preventing the vehicle from accelerating past the current speed limit unless overridden.'
What? That either means you can do whatever you want, or that you need to perform some unusual operation, in the middle of an emergency? (Probably through a touch screen, but now I'm ranting)
I like the fact that my new car says I'm crossing the center lines but doesn't prevent me. The car doesn't know what bikes or potholes or dead skunks I'm avoiding. Recently I got lane warnings when the car thought the snow was a lane marker. And if my insurance company raises my rates because I didn't want to hit a deer, they aren't looking at the best outcome.
If my car wants to create an annoying beeping when I'm exceeding the speed limit, I guess I'm fine with that. But the newer cars I've been driving have demonstrated repeatedly that they have a limited understanding of the whole picture.
posted by MtDewd at 4:55 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I did not respond to this well. I'm not a fan of going fast, but sometimes it's necessary. e.g.-.... even I speed briefly to merge safely.
This is mentioned in the link- Sure, a driver passing a semitruck on an interstate might need to briefly break the posted limit.
There are middle grounds.From one of my old comments all the need to speed hypotheticals are nicely handled by TCAS like system for cars: IE a series of increasingly strident warnings:
*Warning chimes*
Caution, Speed. Caution, Speed
*Warning chimes*
Caution, Speed. Caution, Speed
Excessive Speed. Slow down.
*Louder, more shrill chimes*
Excessive Speed! Slow down!
*Air raid siren like warning sound*
Slow Down!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
Until speed drops below posted limit.
It doesn't require police state lojacking. It doesn't prevent you from speeding your car out of town because Bloefield has strapped a nuclear device into the trunk. Or temporarily speeding past a hazard. It doesn't target POC or the poor.
posted by Mitheral at 7:46 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
This is mentioned in the link- Sure, a driver passing a semitruck on an interstate might need to briefly break the posted limit.
There are middle grounds.From one of my old comments all the need to speed hypotheticals are nicely handled by TCAS like system for cars: IE a series of increasingly strident warnings:
*Warning chimes*
Caution, Speed. Caution, Speed
*Warning chimes*
Caution, Speed. Caution, Speed
Excessive Speed. Slow down.
*Louder, more shrill chimes*
Excessive Speed! Slow down!
*Air raid siren like warning sound*
Slow Down!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
SLOW DOWN!
Until speed drops below posted limit.
It doesn't require police state lojacking. It doesn't prevent you from speeding your car out of town because Bloefield has strapped a nuclear device into the trunk. Or temporarily speeding past a hazard. It doesn't target POC or the poor.
posted by Mitheral at 7:46 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
Of all the organizations to completely abuse this vehicle data I put ICE at the top. I expect they are out there grabbing people off the streets and deporting them.
It low key blows my mind that the ICE's (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) budget is currently at $8.5 billion while the FBI is at $10.8 billion*. I am continually reminded of what the FBI is up to in the news and the FBI is regularly featured in popular media.
Listening to Republicans/Fox News you would think ICE didn't exist, and when is the last time you saw a media puff piece featuring a hard working member of ICE?
*Or as the Justice department counts it: $10,275.8 million.
posted by zenon at 10:31 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
It low key blows my mind that the ICE's (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) budget is currently at $8.5 billion while the FBI is at $10.8 billion*. I am continually reminded of what the FBI is up to in the news and the FBI is regularly featured in popular media.
Listening to Republicans/Fox News you would think ICE didn't exist, and when is the last time you saw a media puff piece featuring a hard working member of ICE?
*Or as the Justice department counts it: $10,275.8 million.
posted by zenon at 10:31 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
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posted by rickw at 6:24 AM on March 12 [17 favorites]