Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨silence7@slrpnk.net⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b00.tHLu.EgCovxk576kv

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anon6789@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

According to the report, the trip details had been provided by General Motors — the manufacturer of the Chevy Bolt. LexisNexis analyzed that driving data to create a risk score “for insurers to use as one factor of many to create more personalized insurance coverage,” according to a LexisNexis spokesman, Dean Carney. Eight insurance companies had requested information about Mr. Dahl from LexisNexis over the previous month.

“It felt like a betrayal,” Mr. Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.”

Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is obtained in fine print and murky privacy policies that few read.

Especially troubling is that some drivers with vehicles made by G.M. say they were tracked even when they did not turn on the feature — called OnStar Smart Driver — and that their insurance rates went up as a result.

“I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” he said. “Same with acceleration. I’m not peeling out. I’m not sure how the car defines that. I don’t feel I’m driving aggressively or dangerously.”

In response to questions from The New York Times, G.M. confirmed that it shares “select insights” about hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding over 80 miles an hour and drive time of Smart Driver enrollees with LexisNexis and another data broker that works with the insurance industry called Verisk.

Customers turn on Smart Driver, said Ms. Lucich, the G.M. spokeswoman, “at the time of purchase or through their vehicle mobile app.” It is possible that G.M. drivers who insisted they didn’t opt in were unknowingly signed up at the dealership, where salespeople can receive bonuses for successful enrollment of customers in OnStar services, including Smart Driver, according to a company manual.

After LexisNexis and Verisk get data from consumers’ cars, they sell information about how people are driving to insurance companies. To access it, the insurance companies must get consent from the drivers — say, when they go out shopping for car insurance and sign off on boilerplate language that gives insurance companies the right to pull third-party reports.

This summary contains 489 words. I’m neither a bot nor open source, but the bot summary was poo.

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- mesamunefire@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  consumer disclosure report
  
  A company that I worked for partnered/ worked with LN. They are legit. Some of the smartest people I know. They are a very old data warehouse (among many other things) company.
  
  If you would like the same report done: consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/consumer They make it very easy.
  
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  - anon6789@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Is there anything you can do once you get the report?
    
    This is the kinda thing that I’d probably be happier not knowing if there’s nothing I can do about it.
    
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- Usernameblankface@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It accounts for speeding… How? Cross reference location with local speed limits? Record times above an internally set speed?
  
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  - bus_factor@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    New Hondas with front cameras (used for adaptive cruise control and lane departure warnings) will read speed limit signs to display them in the dashboard.
    
    It only parses the number, so if a US car is in Canada it will say the speed limit is 110 mph on the highway. If these GM cars do the same they’d probably think any Canadian car going for a weekend trip to the US did so at prison-worthy speeds.
    
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  - anon6789@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It mentioned logging speeds above 80 mph.
    
    That’s the highest speed limit I can find for the US, so if you’re 80+, it seems you are breaking the law regardless of location.
    
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  - XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Based on the text of the article (speeding above 80mph)and my experience with an insurance app, it’s simply looking for anything over 80mph from calculated GPS speed. It doesn’t care about 75 in a 25, just that you don’t break the highest possible speed limit
    
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- XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I used an app version of driving tracking. It gave me an OK discount of around 5-10% just for participation but I didn’t like the fear of tripping it’s alarms - over 80mph and hard braking. Sure, 80mph should be easy enough to handle, but the packs of cars on my commute at the time would cause some interesting events where I’d slowly get up to 75 and still get passed. Come up on someone doing 70 and it’s easy to tip into the 80s to make a pass in a faster lane. But the real concern, for me, is that it made me brake softer. I genuinely got concerned I’d rear end someone to not upset the app. I was worried it’d be a subconscious thing that causes a hiccup in my response, making a bad situation worse. Why would I take the penalty for someone who cut me off?
  
  Now, I think I’m a great driver. Lots of experience early on at a dealership, lots of small quick practice sessions for pushing limits to learn and stay honed, re-learning about attentiveness on a motorcycle, and so on. But I don’t trust the rest of the people out here on a good day, let alone worrying about their brake nanny. And I get it, hard braking to save yourself (not just being inattentive or aggressive) is still an indicator of crash liklihood, but fuck that.
  
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  - anon6789@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This matches what my girlfriend’s experience seemed to be, a weirdness about trying to please the device that has no real awareness of the situation. Second guessing yourself in an emergency isn’t the best outcome.
    
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- gt24@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  The quote about what is a hard brake exactly or heavy acceleration is most relevant to my thoughts. Without any context, are you hard braking to avoid dangers? How many hard brakes are acceptable? What is the penalty for hard braking, etc?
  
  What happens if your specific vehicle has a sensor somewhat out of spec that keeps errantly triggering harsh braking? You wouldn’t know the sensor is activating, you wouldn’t know that the information is being fed to your insurance, and you wouldn’t know why your insurance is priced as it is. You have no transparency as to what is going on nor any realistic way of fixing the issue (because the vehicle runs fine after all and nobody can define what “harsh braking” even is).
  
  Such a hypothetical situation is unlikely but even several dozen or hundred examples is a bit too much…
  
  Also, since you are never directly informed that you are harshly braking or accelerating, you are unlikely to improve how you drive to avoid those things. If you had a notification that the braking action was a bit too harsh then you could strive to avoid that in the future… not so much if you are never told that in the first place.
  
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  - Gork@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Also, what if you need to hard brake or hard accelerate in order to prevent a crash? There’s no way for them to determine that was the case.
    
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cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
At this point manufacturers should just be giving me the vehicle for free.

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phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I will never buy a GM vehicle. There were others reasons not to, but this seals the deal.

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- feannag@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Not sure if you’ve seen this, but all cars are bad. It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
  
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- A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If you dont want to be digitally tracked, then you better figure out how a carburetor works and buy only old cars for the rest of your life.
  
  cause every modern car has this shit, if not now, then soon.
  
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  - FilterItOut@thelemmy.club ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think a carburetor is a bit much. There are plenty of fuel injected machines that were built before insane spying became the new normal.
    
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  - grue@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s about a 20-year window when cars had fuel injection but no tracking. All my cars are from within that window.
    
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  - cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My 95 Integra was EFI and didn’t track me.
    
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  - Socsa@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone make a flipper zero plugin to sanitize canbus data.
    
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- BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Literally EVERY car manufacturer is doing this. Nissan and Kia both explicitly claim access to all data about your sex life they can access. For all we know, they could be reading through your text messages and dating app profiles everytime your phone is connected to the car.
  
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- wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hate to break it to you, but you’ll essentially need to avoid all new cars. For example, Subaru has been collecting data on people fucking in their cars.
  
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  - tal@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    No, they just said that they reserved the right to obtain and sell data on user sexual activity in the privacy policy. There’s no reason to believe that they’ve actually done that or that it was specifically sexual activity in cars; the same policy could cover, say, driving to a motel for a tryst.
    
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- LesserAbe@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Needs legislation! When everybody’s doing it and people need to get around, there should be privacy by law
  
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RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wonder how selling the car impacts the data stream? If you could show that the automaker and LexisNexis aren’t properly handling the transition of the car’s owner from one to another – effectively penalizing the original owner for the actions of a subsequent owner – there might be a legal angle of attack to assert damages.

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- 50MYT@aussie.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Data would surely be username x car modem I’d or something= unique id.
  
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  - RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You labor under the impression that they would only track & keep data if the user was logged in.
    
    Who changed the username in the on-board OnStar system? Did you think to perform a full factory reset on the car’s electronic systems, before selling the car? CAN you?
    
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- fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m sure insurance is gonna stop caring as soon as they get a notice saying that the person sold the car.
  
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  - RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m an IT professional and I am not sure of that at all.
    
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Raiderkev@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m starting to think I won’t ever buy a new car n keep driving older, dumber cats. My current car is an 08, and anything beyond that seems to have been slowly enshittified.

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- warmaster@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I thought the same about Smart TV’s. Now there’s no escape. You can only block it’s network traffic.
  
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  - Microplasticbrain@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Just wait till they pack in some 5g antennas
    
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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That won’t work at scale; cars wear out, and become expensive enough to maintain that people scrap them
  
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  - Buelldozer@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My 1993 Ford Ranger disagrees.
    
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  - interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Just keep 7 or 8 of the same model and fix it yourself. Pretty soon we’ll be able to fabricate every single part on these so even if the parts go out we will be able to keep them running
    
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Moneo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
‘Cars = Freedom Crew’, where ya at?

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Working to make the car payment, instead of zipping around on a paid-off bicycle
  
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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Plug every antenna port with a 50ohm dummy load There, got freedom of travel back
  
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SecretSauces@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wonder if there’s a way to disable that kind of reporting. Obviously, that’s not an acceptable answer to the issue. Sharing of information like that needs to be opt-in with full disclosure and not buried within pages of legalese.

But as a moderately tech savvy person, maybe there’s a way to disable it’s network connectivity so it can’t phone home anymore.

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- slurpeesoforion@startrek.website ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Rip out the antenna.
  
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- 0x0@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For now, i assume “all” you have to to is find the car’s antennas and disable them. Once “no signal” == “car won’t start”, you’ll have to spoof the antenna signal. I’ll keep my '98 car for as long as i can thanks very much.
  
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- fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In my Subaru it’s a seperate box under the radio. It intercepts the front speakers and microphone from the radio, so with a custom harness I can bypass it. Obviously that varies by make, model, and trim.
  
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  - vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Unless its fiber optic you could probably just cut and splice.
    
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- vvv@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  on my car, there’s a fuse you can pull out, which theoretically cuts power to OnStar. check your car manual/forums about your model
  
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- pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There is with my vehicle. In fact, such tracking was opt-in if you enabled the driving score feature.
  
  I’d imagine this is mostly a case of someone not reading their ToS before enabling the car’s smart features.
  
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ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Welp, time to disable OnStar…

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  A lot of car makers use a cellular connection collect this data. You need to disable that too.
  
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  - ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I agree it should be codified, but have no hope that our fascist leaning lawmakers won’t gladly accept $$ from insurance companies and automakers to do what they want to do anyways.
    
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  - Magister@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep, all cars connected so you can pay $20/month for remote start and things like this. The only way to disable cellular connection in the car is to unplug the cell antenna from the module. You have to dig the information online to find where is the module and have to disassemble the dash to do so maybe? But it’s te only way. Even if you don’t pay, the connection will still work and manufacturer receives all info.
    
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  - BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This is one of the reasons I never want a car with it’s own internet connection. I’ll stick to plugging in my phone, where I’m very stingy with which apps even get location data, much less the “physical activity history” permission which allows this kind of continuous tracking (and which is usually needed because it uses Google’s algorithms / possibly neural nets to guess whether you’re driving or walking based on accelerometer / gyro / gps / magnetometer sensor fusion).
    
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  - FalseMyrmidon@kbin.run ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The location tracking on my phone is in no way precise enough to determine this info.
    
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BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This seems like such a wretched inevitably. I mean, I guess we're living it with phones, but it seems so unnecessary with cars.

Is there really no market for the same boring car, with minor efficiency tweaks, for, like, ever? I coulda lived with my 95' Accord forever if the parts hadn't been too expensive.

Do es the market really not want that, or do the manufacturers prevent it from happening?

Any Automancer please explain, I'm not car enough to understand.

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Selling your data is a new revenue stream for automakers, and as a practical matter, you can’t avoid it.
  
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  - BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Even before data sales, though, a baseline, universal car never happened. Was there never a market or was a market never allowed to form?
    
    Or perhaps the tech in a car really does advance faster than I understand?
    
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- 0x0@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Do es the market really not want that, or do the manufacturers prevent it from happening?
  
  Of course they don’t want that. Build-int obsolescence is a thing, has been for ages and not just in cars.
  
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- Redwastaken@lemmynsfw.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My next question would be, does the Asian models have this same shit ?
  
  If not importing would be a nice alternative
  
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  - FilterItOut@thelemmy.club ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I mean, as someone else pointed out in a comment here, they literally have it in the terms that they can track your sexual activity…
    
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Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ban the Chinese version of LexisNexis! If it works for social media it will work for the insurance industry!

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autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:

LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets.

But “drivers are historically reluctant to participate in these programs,” as Ford Motor put it in a patent application that describes what is happening instead: Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry.

In recent years, automakers, including G.M., Honda, Kia and Hyundai, have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving.

In a recent promotional campaign, an Instagram influencer used Smart Driver in a competition with her husband to find out who could collect the most digital badges, such as “brake genius” and “limit hero.”

Neither the car companies nor the data brokers deny that they are engaged in this practice, though automakers say the main purpose of their driver feedback programs is to help people develop safer driving habits.

The other automakers all have optional driver-coaching features in their apps — Kia, Mitsubishi and Hyundai have “Driving Score,” while Honda and Acura have “Driver Feedback” — that, when turned on, collect information about people’s mileage, speed, braking and acceleration that is then shared with LexisNexis or Verisk, the companies said in response to questions from The New York Times.

The original article contains 2,347 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wonder if google does this with maps data

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- pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Do you really have to wonder if a free Google service is collecting your data?
  
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  - Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well it shouldn’t as I am an EU citizen. However I’m quite certain they should seek out to do so. I only mention it as someone should look into it, like the author of this article…
    
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  - Moneo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fuck Google but they don’t not sell your data with your name attached to it.
    
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- antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I guess iOS needs to add privacy permissions about accelerometer. I wouldn’t have thought but there’s a perfect use case: Google Maps would like access to your accelerometer.
  
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Blaster_M@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Disconnects modem from out of warranty car

What now, automakers?

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- hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  your car is bricked
  
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  - Blaster_M@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Must be real fun having to explain to customers that their car stops working because they drove too fae away from the nearst cell tower.
    
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