LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.

Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.

So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.

LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. 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.

On a Thursday morning in June for example, the car had been driven 7.33 miles in 18 minutes; there had been two rapid accelerations and two incidents of hard braking.

  • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
    2·
    8 months ago

    I think this should be legally prohibited. Also is it possible to physically disconnected the network modules so they can’t send anything?

  • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
    2·
    8 months ago

    Comprehensive privacy law time? Nahh just ban the Chinese EVs and pretend this doesn’t happen. Same thing as tiktok. You’ll never be protected as long as they can point to the Chinese boogyman.

  • JIMMERZ@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    My auto insurance rose 27% this year. My cars sit in a locked garage 20ft away from me practically all week long as I work from home. I was shocked to find my rates rose so high as I barely even drive at all anymore. Their solution was for me to get their data collection puck. What a fucking racket!

  • plz1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    “Sharing” is a funny way to word a headline. They are selling it, for a profit, because it’s legal. It’s immoral and shady as hell, but “prevent it or expect it” applies here.

  • doricub@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    We don’t have to worry about the government tracking us everywhere we go. These corporations will do it for them and then sell the data for a proft.

  • kbal@fedia.io
    1·
    8 months ago

    Last time I drove a rental car I was constantly aware that it was probably tracking everything I did, sending that data back to its owners, who would then sell it on to data brokers and insurance companies and whoever else wanted it.

    It was sort of tolerable on a temporary basis, until I got to driving along a road where the speed limit had recently changed. The car helpfully displayed what it thought the speed limit was, and suddenly I had to choose between driving safely and driving according to what the computers presumably wanted to see.

    Drivers of the world, do not let your cars have Internet access. No good can come of it.

    • Codilingus@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      8 months ago

      Classic JDM shit boxes till I die. Used to be a joke, but since cars have become what are essentially IoT devices, it’s become real. 🥲

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
    1·
    8 months ago

    I still have my 2010 Mazda 3. The only tech it has is Bluetooth connectivity for phone and music and some voice commands for calls.

    The day I will change cars will be the day my car completely dies and there’s nothing I can do about it, or it becomes illegal to drive, or it gets wrecked in an accident.

    I don’t ever want the new cars. I hate hate hate the stupid touch tablets they’ve put to control everything instead of physical knobs, and now this fucking crap where your car spies on you and rats you out to you insurance company.

    • Mike D.@lemm.ee
      1·
      8 months ago

      Agreed.

      I now need to root my Android and put a new OS so it stops telling Google where I am. I’m slightly afraid as I just want my phone to work when I need it.

      I’m sure T-Mobile uses my location data for something too.

  • AliasAKA@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    We need to start poisoning this data. I don’t think the solution is to cut the wires, I think it’s to send bogus data. Just make it so that no matter how I drive, the data is always overwritten that I traveled 5 miles at 30mph average with no hard stops and no hard accelerations. I only ever make that trip. Wanna base my insurance off that? Go for it.

    Anyways I lack the technical ability to do this, but wonder if some enterprising person could hack the obd to constantly overwrite the data here.

    Again I want to poison this data. It should be illegal, but it’s not. Companies will charge me more if I block it. So the solution is data poisoning imo.

    Incidentally we need to be poisoning ALL data brokers and collectors for these types of things.