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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Google Street View has become a surprisingly useful way to learn about the world without stepping into it. People use it to plan journeys, to explore holiday destinations, and to virtually stalk friends and enemies alike.
But researchers have found more insidious uses. In 2017 a team of researchers used the images to study the distribution of car types in the US and then used that data to determine the demographic makeup of the country. It turns out that the car you drive is a surprisingly reliable proxy for your income level, your education, your occupation, and even the way you vote in elections.
Now a different group has gone even further. Łukasz Kidziński at Stanford University in California and Kinga Kita-Wojciechowska at the University of Warsaw in Poland have used Street View images of people's houses to determine how likely they are to be involved in a car accident. That's valuable information that an insurance company could use to set premiums.
The result raises important questions about the way personal information can leak from seemingly innocent data sets and whether organizations should be able to use it for commercial purposes.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday May 05 2019, @01:31PM (5 children)
This doesn't seem to fall under google's recent "automatic deletion" plan.
If this takes root across the industry, that'll not be very pro-consumer. I don't even have an account with google and this is another way that their collected data could be used against people and for profit. I imagine disability (not picking weeds--LAZY!) or working long hours (the yard is NEGLECTED!) is tagged to an old google maps picture that doesn't reflect how it looks today is going to raise people's rates in the long-term. Even if the photo is from the time when someone else owned the house. How can someone contest any of this, I wonder?
If companies can mine old google street view and maps data for profit via some script, there should be some regulation regarding how often it's updated and what can be legally used and how it's fact checked, and to allow the insured to examine and contest any of the details.
I expect, though, that it'll be a closed system and if you don't like it you can... complain on social media, which will also be used to influence your risk scores.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:58PM (4 children)
There is a way to opt-out of google street view...
https://www.wikihow.com/Opt-Out-of-Google-Street-View [wikihow.com]
My neighbors are cops and have blurred their street views.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 05 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)
You can also get Google to correct inaccurate maps (such as the map to our home down the private road)... it only took me 5 years of constant nagging before they got it close enough to right that our Amazon deliveries stopped showing up on the next block over.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:41PM
Amazons AMZL shipping? They're worse than USPS who delivers everyone's mail on my street one house off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @09:53PM
Depending on how a driveway is configured, a front hedge can work wonders with StreetView -- my parent's house is on an older street and with the full hedge the Goog's camera got their mailbox at the street and about the first 50 feet of the 100 foot long curving driveway. No cars or house visible from that view (only from the aerial view).
My house has a shorter driveway, but garage is sideways (side load), so all you see are a couple of older cars stored further back in what was originally probably made for a "turnaround" extension of the driveway past the house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:58PM
This is Hyperturtle posting without having logged in... thanks and I will give that a try!