this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 31 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

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.

As usual, lack of transparency is of key concern. Digital opt-in where other people have physical control of the device and have a profit motivation should not be acceptable.

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?

My girlfriend tried the OBD reader for her insurance for a bit, and it didn't anything one way or the other to her insurance. For something as random as driving, I dont see who would want to volunteer for it. We know the only direction prices ever move is up, so what does the consumer have to gain?

[–] gt24@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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. It seemed like it could penalize me for the time of day as well, giving different risk ratings for time of day and what day. 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.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 7 points 7 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.

[–] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (10 children)

It accounts for speeding... How? Cross reference location with local speed limits? Record times above an internally set speed?

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] msage@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah, thank god it never reads unrelated signs on the side, and car never tells me the limit is 30 on a fucking 130 kmh highway.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 3 points 7 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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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 19 points 7 months ago

At this point manufacturers should just be giving me the vehicle for free.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I'm starting to think I won't ever buy a new car n keep driving older, dumber cars. My current car is an 08, and anything beyond that seems to have been slowly enshittified.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

I thought the same about Smart TV's. Now there's no escape. You can only block it's network traffic.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That won't work at scale; cars wear out, and become expensive enough to maintain that people scrap them

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)

My 1993 Ford Ranger disagrees.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I think every old Ranger is begging to be put out of it's misery. Those cars were piles of shit when new, and even bigger piles of shit now that they're old.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

On average, people junk cars at about 20 years. A few really do last longer, particularly if they're not driven daily.

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[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (14 children)

I will never buy a GM vehicle. There were other reasons not to, but this seals the deal.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 8 points 7 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.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 2 points 7 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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[–] Moneo@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

'Cars = Freedom Crew', where ya at?

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 6 points 7 months ago

Working to make the car payment, instead of zipping around on a paid-off bicycle

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[–] RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] 50MYT@aussie.zone 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Data would surely be username x car modem I'd or something= unique id.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Ban the Chinese version of LexisNexis! If it works for social media it will work for the insurance industry!

[–] BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Selling your data is a new revenue stream for automakers, and as a practical matter, you can't avoid it.

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[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Disconnects modem from out of warranty car

Problem, automakers?

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