- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.
So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.
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. 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.
On a Thursday morning in June for example, the car had been driven 7.33 miles in 18 minutes; there had been two rapid accelerations and two incidents of hard braking.
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My auto insurance rose 27% this year. My cars sit in a locked garage 20ft away from me practically all week long as I work from home. I was shocked to find my rates rose so high as I barely even drive at all anymore. Their solution was for me to get their data collection puck. What a fucking racket!
Apparently a part of that is that EVs are more expensive to insurance companies, so they are spreading that cost around.
My insurance jumped by about 20% as well, after discounts from shopping around.
It cant just be EVs, but when i was searching this was the main reported factor.Or, all the insurance companies just decided to massively bump rates
My understanding is that they all got together and decided to raise rates across the board.
Colluding?
Of course not, that would be illegal and immoral!
/s just in case
Used Vehicles became more valuable over the past few years as new vehicle production was issued halted in early 2020 and supply chain issues plagued manufacturers for a few years after that. Used car prices are just now starting to come down. I hardly ever saw cars for sale by owner that didn’t have over 200k miles on them and weren’t models plagued with major issues. People were still asking $5k for absolute junk. My advice over the past few years has been to buy a new car as it’s a much better value over any used car at the moment.
My completely uninformed guess is:
- we all forgot how to drive like normal people during/after lockdowns and,
- cars continue to get bigger and heavier, so accidents are more likely to result in total loss
Parts are plastic and cheaply made so more shit breaks when you get in an accident.
The reasoning they gave me is exactly that. People driving like crazy post pandemic, and the fact that cars have become exponentially expensive.
I bet you all the insurance companies are using a service that provides pricing via algorithms. In their opinion it’s not collusion, just math.
pricing via algorithms
This is essentially what all insurance is. Actuary tables, risk analysis, so forth. All math with the single purpose to ensure that over the whole risk pool, the House wins.
Last time I drove a rental car I was constantly aware that it was probably tracking everything I did, sending that data back to its owners, who would then sell it on to data brokers and insurance companies and whoever else wanted it.
It was sort of tolerable on a temporary basis, until I got to driving along a road where the speed limit had recently changed. The car helpfully displayed what it thought the speed limit was, and suddenly I had to choose between driving safely and driving according to what the computers presumably wanted to see.
Drivers of the world, do not let your cars have Internet access. No good can come of it.
That’s not always a choice, without hurdles. I have a truck with it, but I would have no idea how to disable it short of cutting the antenna wire for it.
Yes, that is exactly what you should do. Remove the antenna.
They will store it and upload the data when you go in for service
That probably voids the entire warranty or something ridiculous like that.
Classic JDM shit boxes till I die. Used to be a joke, but since cars have become what are essentially IoT devices, it’s become real. 🥲
Your anecdote isn’t meaningful. That’s simply an outdated map software.
It serves as a convenient representative example of the ways in which such systems can go wrong.
I mean, this is the world of software and computer systems. The map is always outdated, the model is always fictional, and the metric is always measuring the wrong thing. Even aside from the obvious privacy problems this kind of big data approach has its limits which are too easily ignored by insurance companies eager to take the average across thousands of mistakes hoping to get something profitable. As is becoming increasingly more obvious to the general public as computer algorithms designed in secret rule more of our lives, quite often the best that can be managed is a system that works adequately well for the purposes of its designers even while it takes decisions that are utterly stupid at the level of the individual people subjected to it.
Which then reports back to LexisNexis that you are speeding through an area, which is then reported to insurance companies who in turn flag you as a dangerous driver, raising your premiums.
The anecdote doesn’t necessarily prove anything but it is conceivable that stretch of road is mismarked in multiple systems.
That assumes the outdated map software manages to somehow make an accurate report. Most likely, if it makes one, it’ll be “Going X over a Y MPH area” even though Y is wrong, or it’ll be just “speeding by X MPH for Y seconds/minutes”. Either way, nobody is likely to verify and correct the data, so you could be punished for perfectly safe and legal driving.
You can’t be punished for it because that “evidence” was not correctly collected.
Also in your specific example and depending on the country, for them to report you on that would be a false accusation which means they’re the ones that could get into trouble if you go after them (basically any costs you incurred because of it would be on them).
(IANAL, so take this with a pinch)
It’s probably too much trouble for them to actually report it to the police (if they do it automatically, they run the risk I mention and they’re not going to spend the money manually reviewing it) - there is risk and cost involved with nothing in it for them.
That said, they could still pass it on to some entities other than the police (such as insurers) and good luck for you to prove it and show the damage it caused you. In the EU you could request them all the data they had on you which would possibly be enough to catch them, but outside it, it really depends.
Maybe not legally punished, but this very article we’re discussing is about how insurance companies are, in fact, punishing you financially for it. As for the false accusation, sure, but how likely is anyone to even figure it out? You’re not being dragged into court, and people don’t even know this is happening yet. It’s only illegal if you get caught. I don’t expect them to report it to anyone. I just expect data collectors to sell data and other businesses to buy it for the express purposes of financially screwing you. You may stay out of court, but that extra 21% charge is gonna cost you a couple hundred per year at least.
Yeah, hence the last paragraph of my comment.
I can see how it can indirectly used in ways that harm somebody, just wanted to point out it’s unlikelly to be reporting drivers to the police if only because there’s no money and some risk for them in doing it.
Mind you, if the police does some kind of agreement with them were they’re paid for it and are immune to liability for misreporting, I can see rental companies doing it.
I’m very happy that I live in Europe, not the US.
They aren’t reporting you to the police. They are selling that data to insurance companies who then use that information to jack up your premiums. So guess what. You are now being financially punished for safe driving while someone in a 20 year old shit box that miraculously avoids accidents and apeeding tickets pays a lower premium.
The only solution is to forbid companies from collecting this data in the first place. It’s never going to be used to make something cheaper for you, it’s only ever going to be used to sell you something or to charge you more.
I think we’re basically seeing the same picture and in agreement on how things should be (which is why I pointed I’m happy to be in the EU, were that stuff IS forbiden unless people explicitly opt-in).
No opt-ins because companies will do whatever they can to force you into opting in for it. Same way that fast food companies are harvesting data from people by jacking up prices and making “discounts” available on their apps. Corporations have all the leverage again consumers.
Yes, the only access to the Internet a car should have is through my phone in an opt-in basis. That way I can stream music, map directions, etc through my phone that I’ve already made somewhat secure.
meanwhile I have to pre fill out some forms so the sherrif office can track it if its stolen. It cracks me up how the government getting things is a big deal but corpos then no worries.
Kinda like those who choose to be in the Progressive Insurance “Snapshot” program where you install an OBD2 dongle that reports a lot of data about your driving habits back to Progressive in the dim chance you drive so well that they will lower your rates.
Big difference is consent.
Surely theres someone who has a rasberi pi that reports fake data to this thing? Yes, insurance company, I drive like a Grandma. You’re welcome, now give me my discount.
I feel like fraud is a big risk for, what, less than $100/mo? You can do better.
They’re literally an insurance company. They have lawyers coming out of their ears.
I never sent this information to insurance companies. Not my problem if some company tracking me gets faulty info.
Is it fraud? Its your car and your data.
Its not fraud for me to change the user agent of my web browser.
It’s fine till you have an accident. Then your completely fucked.
Those deals, at least over here, are generally aimed at new drivers. I actually agree with them, to a level. It lets the insurance company rapidly sort the safe drivers from the idiots, and so discriminate on prices. It also trains new drivers to be safer. I remember how fearless I was when starting out. The quicker we get new drivers out of that mindset, the better.
We don’t have to worry about the government tracking us everywhere we go. These corporations will do it for them and then sell the data for a proft.
The government buys your data, too. And not just your government.
For any legal case, government or your spouse’s divorce attorney, it’s a low bar to soupeana “business records” from these companies.
The US needs stronger data protection and privacy laws. Unfortunately, the corporations buy enough politicians to prevent it.
Unfortunately one of their customers is the government, so we still have to worry about that too.
What a great use of my tax dollars.
That’s right. The thing that anti-government people seem to forget is that, left unchecked, corporations are much worse than oppressive governments. Democratic Nations need to be vigilant of both.
Not will, do: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/28/government-buying-your-data-00143742
This is how you radicalize a populace. Fuckin stupid move.
I will end up living in the woods at this rate.
Stay outta my tree!
Planet Labs saves an image of the world – including whatever woods you’re referring to – at 3-meter resolution every day.
Am I the only one who doesn’t find this surprising. All these big car companies making drivable spyware and who would probably want that data? Insurance companies. This is why my first car I’m gonna tear out the modem.
I’m not surprised it happened, but a little surprised how quickly it happened. Most insurance companies still offer a plan where you voluntarily plug in a tracker to monitor your driving in exchange for lower rates if you’re a good driver, so it’s extra fucked that they’re doing the same thing to presumably everyone with an internet connected car without even telling them upfront, let alone getting consent.
Surprising? Hell no. Infuriating? Fuck yes. Your accident records should speak for themselves, not some bullshit algorithms calculating if yOu AcCelLerATeD ToO fASt or not. Get the fuck outta here with that baby shit.
We didn’t see that one coming huh
Is there a way to disable this? Does it report though android auto? Is there a way to prevent those packets sending?
Varies widely. In Toyota’s you call via the SOS button, have your VIN and they can do it. There are also other direct ways like pulling the Mayday fuse to disconnect the “Data Connection Module” (DCM) but that takes the microphone with it.
Some older vehicles that have 3G radios might not have been disconnected explicitly but are as good as dead because 3G as they knew it is gone.
It does not report via Android Auto since these vehicles have their own cellular radios, but not to say Google has its own metrics.
Your best bet is looking for a car/make-specific forum or subreddit and see if anyone’s asked the questions before while ignoring the “nothing to hide, you have a phone lol” clowns.
I was going through a reddit post that asked a question how to remove network on a Tesla model 3 and they were all like “I’ve got nothing to hide” “you’re cheating on your wife” etc. However, I did find some schematics and there are guides on youtube.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/tesla-model-3-sim-replacement-guide-pdf.563266/
The car has a cellular connection and whoever manufacturers the car probably pays for it.
How to disable? Probably not without breaking something else. You could at best block the Connection with Lead foil but you’d have to find where it was. You might lose all Connection though - Bluetooth, FM/AM
Moving from 64 to 65 also moves you from a different age bracket, I would guess that this is the main reason he saw a general rise on his insurance cost from all the other insurance companies.
Age buckets are so archaic
I think they totally have the computer power to use an hyper parametric model with each age as own variable. A problem this could had, is that they are not going to be enough older adults to accurately assess the risk of them and the model could end showing that 80yo’s are better drivers than 30yo’s.
You can use regression splines or lowess to locally weight the areas with low data based on what you do know, it keeps your parameter count down but still performs well even at the tails.
I disagree, they’re effective and a reasonably privacy-friendly way of predicting risk. Younger people are generally more aggressive drivers than older people, and older people generally have worse reactions than younger people. It’s one of the strongest indicators for driving behavior before an infraction is recorded.
I don’t like it either, but it’s better imo than using one of those driving meters.
So I’m not against using age, but binning it coarsely is the issue when it can be handled much more granularly.
64-65 is probably a negligible amount of risk increase, but 64-69 is going to be much bigger. Looking at younger ages the effect is more extreme where they’re probably charging late 20’s drivers more because they’re pooled with low 20’s.
Anyway, on average it probably works out the same, but in practice I never bin data where I can avoid it, since you get better information looking at it as a continuous range.
True, but the insurance agent told him the spyware report was a factor.
Comprehensive privacy law time? Nahh just ban the Chinese EVs and pretend this doesn’t happen. Same thing as tiktok. You’ll never be protected as long as they can point to the Chinese boogyman.
Yeah, I feel like that’s why the EU has such strong privacy regulations. Tech giants in our market are mostly either state-tolerated&-utilized monopolies from the US or state-owned monopolies from China.
There’s also the potential that raising concerns of Chinese spyware raises more concern of the rest of it. They should continue raising those concerns about them all. And ban all the spyware.
We need to start poisoning this data. I don’t think the solution is to cut the wires, I think it’s to send bogus data. Just make it so that no matter how I drive, the data is always overwritten that I traveled 5 miles at 30mph average with no hard stops and no hard accelerations. I only ever make that trip. Wanna base my insurance off that? Go for it.
Anyways I like the technical ability to do this, but wonder if some enterprising person could hack the obd to constantly overwrite the data here.
Again I want to poison this data. It should be illegal, but it’s not. Companies will charge me more if I block it. So the solution is data poisoning imo.
Incidentally we need to be poisoning ALL data brokers and collectors for these types of things.
i think we should also flood them with so much data it cant keep upnandevendecipher what is really anymore. Same for computer habits. Flood it with random data.
I’ll take the route of I’m not going to own a car that will tell on me, or I will make that car not report.
Incidentally we need to be poisoning ALL data brokers and collectors for these types of things.
Go here for a good start: https://adnauseam.io/
Thank you for sharing!!
It might be nice if auto reviewers included a “privacy rating” for a vehicle based OK whether it broadcasts anything via radio (e.g. cell or tire-pressure systems can be used to identify someone). It’s not just auto manufacturers, but anyone who wants to set up a radio monitoring network, if there are unique IDs being broadcast.
I don’t know how a reviewer could know whether there’s a way for a manufacturer to gather logs during maintenance.
They’ll never give a review like that because they need manufacturers to send them more cars to review.
Is that the whole text of the article? (paywall) Was there any investigation as to the source of the data on the report? As this is a leased vehicle, I would not be surprised if the data came from a dealer module that they use to immobilize the vehicle if you miss a payment or otherwise violate your lease.
Car companies are directly sending this data to the brokers in exchange for “low millions of dollars.” Imagine destroying all consumer trust in a multi-billion dollar brand for so little. I would never even consider buying a GM or any brand involved in this.
EVERY brand is involved in this. Mozilla org investigated literally every car manufacturer available in the United States last year and gave them all an F for privacy.
I dunno if motorcycles have the infrastructure. I guess if you were willing to ride a motorcycle, that might avoid it.
Obviously it’s possible to stick telemetry on even small vehicles like that, given that the e-bike and e-scooter rental companies rely on it.
Yeah, I had thought about buying a Bolt because they’re reasonably inexpensive EVs, but this is a definite nope from me.
Unfortunately its not a third party module but manufacturer built-in features.
Modern cars are internet-enabled, allowing access to services like navigation, roadside assistance and car apps that drivers can connect to their vehicles to locate them or unlock them remotely. 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. Some drivers may not realize that, if they turn on these features, the car companies then give information about how they drive to data brokers like LexisNexis.
I work in fintech and I had glimpses of raw API data that credit agencies, Mastercard and LexisNexis provide (among others). It’s crazy detailed. Even just our query increases the query count by one and provides at least ten data points on the why and when.
I’m not surprised that the car manufacturers are selling this data to LexisNexis who in turn sell it to insurance companies.
258 pages?! That’s half of MS’s office format specification!
