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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @10:03PM
Another option -- require insurance companies that use this kind of harvested data to divulge what they are using to determine your rate. This could be on-request, if my car insurance goes up a few % each year I'm not going to complain. This way you have a chance to figure out why the price is higher than expected... and maybe even correct the quote (in some cases).
As things stand now in USA, usually the only way to fight a high insurance quote is to switch to a different company or agent and try again. At least around here (Great Lakes area), there are no shortage of companies looking for this business, plenty of competition.