Car Insurance Monitoring for Discounted Insurance Rates - Privacy Devouring Monster Eating Us One Bi

For a price, would you allow car insurance company along for the ride? -
inquires a USA Today engineering narrative by Kevin Maney. It seems
that Progressive Insurance and IBM have got worked out a strategy to
pay drivers to be safer - by monitoring their every move in
their ain cars, and how fast they do that move, and where
they park, and what clip they drive.

The programme is being tested inch Gopher State and in the U.K. in a
privateness busting programme that rewards drivers for keeping under
the upper limit velocity bounds and drive during safer modern times of
day. It's an interesting turn that is compared here to a
shopper reward card that monitoring devices what you buy, although it
doesn't give you lower terms if you purchase healthy nutrient - which
looks like the best analogy. (But it makes allow the nutrient chains
cognize how often you store and how much you pass on what types
of food, and alcohol, and cigarets and trashy tabloids.)

Drivers must attach an electronic monitoring device to their cars that
downloads information which is generated and stored there in
diagnostic bits included in most newer theoretical account vehicles. As they
drive, it hive aways current drive behaviour - and location - and
drive modern times and at the end of the defined time, drivers take
the unit of measurement into the house, attach a USB cablegram and download that
information into their computing machine and transmit it to
Progressive.

But the insurance price reduction programme makes have got an interesting
turn in the Gopher State test. Apparently drivers who see from
their downloaded information (or just cognize they drove badly at
times) that they exceeded upper limit velocity limits, drove during
expensive modern modern times (2am when parallel bars stopping point is most expensive, after
11pm is next) can take NOT to direct that information to
Progressive and pay the normal undiscounted insurance rate.

It looks to have got the true benefit of making drivers become
more than cautious and drive within bounds of the law during safe
hours. There is nil incorrect with this for those willing to
give up the information. This allows those willing to be
monitored the pick to direct the information to their insurer
and get a price reduction or NOT direct it to pay normal rates. It's
worth considering.

I'm among those who goes on to utilize supermarket loyalty
cards, even though I contemn the fact that they can see my
purchase history and short letter my travel habits. The nest egg are
just too great to go through up. (I used a false name to put the
card up, but quickly noted that they tied together my debit
card name and loyalty card purchases, thus gaining that
information that I had denied them with the false name - now I
utilize cash.) You certainly can't make the same with the insurance
drive discounts. Information must be accurate to properly
see and price reduction the policy.

The United Kingdom programme is more than invasive and offers far less choice. Drivers must always download the information from the car
faculty to derive insurance price reductions and the British company
monitoring devices more information from those United Kingdom drivers.

The United States version may have got some virtue if pick stays a portion of
the equation upon full rollout to American drivers who want
that 10 percent price reduction on auto insurance policies in
exchange for giving up the privateness of their drive habits.

The distressing portion of this, again, as always, is the possible
merging of multiple databases to constitute near perfect
surveillance images of us with each new development. Our
supermarket price reductions demo that large database what we eat,
what else we purchase at the grocery, the insurance information
defines our travels and schedule, our credit and debit entry card
usage defines our spending, travel and lifestyles, while
multiple other databases from airline security information to phone
records can be merged at any clip to constitute near perfect
images of our lives for anyone that desires to access it.

Once a national Idaho (driver licences will soon carry mandatory
magnetic information and will function as a defacto national ID),
we can be fully monitored, tracked, analyzed and digitized to
constitute a truly invasive database of numbers and spots of
information about each of us.

The beginnings of information about each of us are growing daily. The
concern is the loss or maltreatment of that information through commercial
and/or governmental negligence and/or criminal intent. The
methods to access that information are growing as the sources
proliferate.

Privacy is something we give up in small spots for small
benefits, like cheaper green goods using supermarket loyalty cards
and insurance price reductions using car monitoring devices hooked up to our
insurance carrier. We need laws to command and safegaurd each
of those databases and halt any merging of those multiple
beginnings of information into the ultimate Big Brother database.

I desire my car insurance reduced and I'm willing to consider
this latest strategy if I have got pick of whether to direct my info
to my insurer. I will direct it when I've been good and won't
when I have got been less good. But I don't desire it merged with my
other beginnings of information or shared among commercial interests who
may see tantrum to sell it to each other.

It gets more than interesting daily. Who is in control of this
privateness devouring information monster?