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from the we-told-you-this-would-happen dept.
In a move that should surprise no-one, The Guardian reports that :
One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.
The unprecedented move highlights the start of a new era for how companies use online personal data and will start a debate about privacy.
Admiral Insurance will analyse the Facebook accounts of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. For example, individuals who are identified as conscientious and well-organised will score well.
The insurer will examine posts and likes by the Facebook user, although not photos, looking for habits that research shows are linked to these traits. These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just "tonight".
As usual the insurer claims that this is "voluntary," where "voluntary" means you'll pay an extra amount up to £350 if you choose to protect your privacy.
The long term goal is to add other social media platforms, and yes, "...we've been working closely with Facebook in Europe to get the service ready"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sarasani on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:51AM
According to Admiral’s press release: “The technology uses social data personality assessments, matched to real claims data, to better understand first time drivers and more accurately predict risk.”
However, this has been found to be in breach of Facebook's Platform Policy section 3.15, which states:
"Don’t use data obtained from Facebook to make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan."
Facebook have since disabled the app.
Source [openrightsgroup.org]
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I have little doubt that, unless we put in place proper legal safeguards, this will be completely in our potential future domain. But it is too early for FB to have these kinds of deals completely out in the open: people can't stomach it yet. Perhaps this is similar to the way FB tends to test the waters when they play with users' privacy: first roll out something over the top, then wind it back to a more acceptable level after the inevitable shit storm hits, and then gradually, over the years (when people become accustomed to it), still push through the original bad ass implementation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driven on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:20PM
FTA:
These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just "tonight".
Since these metrics have no bearing on driving ability, I think this is more about a new revenue stream than anything.
Quoth Sarasani:
first roll out something over the top, then wind it back to a more acceptable level after the inevitable shit storm hits, and then gradually, over the years (when people become accustomed to it), still push through the original bad ass implementation.
Completely agreed. This is why I left Facebook a couple of years ago - when I read about how they want to start tracking your medical data I said to myself "I can see where this is going" and left for good. Not to say I don't miss seeing some updates from friends/family but on the plus side I've increased my privacy and no longer waste a significant portion of my free time reloading that goddamn website.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:25PM
These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just "tonight".
Since these metrics have no bearing on driving ability
Hogwash! If you can't do those things while driving you deserve to pay more for insurance because you're an accident waiting to happen!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @08:22PM
push through the original bad ass implementation.
"Bad ass" means "cool", not "shitty", which is what I assume you meant :)