Trading in your privacy isn’t worth it
Your car probably has an Event Data Recorder ( a black box) in it. Some of your favourite North American brands, including Cadillac and Chevrolet, started inserting them into models in their lineup as early as 1994. Assume anything later has one.
EDRs are similar to those on airplanes and can be used for the same reason: to assemble last- moment information in a crash. This is a good thing, and is the reason investigators were finally able to figure out how GM ignitions were killing people.
The question of who has access to this information has always raised concerns, but who could argue against knowing all we can about a mechanical failure or a driver error with fatal results?
For the past few years, however, insurance companies have been cheerleading a different kind of black box, one they install that sends them feedback on how you drive. Never drive at night, on the highway or above the speed limit? Better rates for you! You don’t swerve or brake hard, so why should you pay rates that have to cover the idiots who do?
In theory, sure, I’ ll give them that. Our insurance rates, especially here in Ontario, are usurious compared with most parts of North America. Why should I sub- sidize bad drivers? Especially when my company has explicitly told me I will never be penalized if they catch me off-roading with my Civic and will reward me for becoming the mythical little old lady who only drives on Sundays.
You want to know why I won’t sign up for the insurance company’s black box? Information. That’s why I won’t do it. That is my information, my privacy, and I have no idea how that information will be used, or more likely, misused, against me at any time now or in the future. Neither do you. Hell, I bet the insurance companies haven’t even finished thinking up the ways they can use this information, and that’s before government agencies get to it.
Pete Karageorgos, with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, points out the advantage for some drivers.
“If I see my car is basically sitting in the driveway all the time, it would be attractive to take advantage of a good-driver discount,” he says.
Asked if Canadians are piling on that particular bandwagon with the same exuberance as many Americans, he hesitates.
“The jury is still out up here,” he notes. “After an initial flurry of advertising two years ago, you’ll notice less. The early adopters are on board, and it appears others are now in a wait- and- see mode.”
Ingenue is an insurance company aimed at those who are 16 to 24 years old, first established in the U. K. in 2011 and now available in Canada. It works much like a pay- as- you- go phone plan, with drivers getting instant feedback via Twitter- like messages on their driving performance. Drive safely, get rewarded with lower costs. Drive foolishly, and those incentives disappear.
Karageorgos points out an interesting tenet of the program: If a young driver seems to be erratic or experiencing ongoing issues with their driving behaviour, they are contacted by … a counsellor. Instead of just stripping away a discount, they go deeper and hopefully discover things Mom and Dad might not be aware of. I want to know what happens with that information down the road; does my kid’s insurance company now play a role in their health file?
Dr. Ann Cavoukian, executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University, views the tracking of both individuals and their cars with alarm.
“There are unintended consequences,” she cautions. “Connected devices are providing reams of data to employers and companies with little transparency of how that information might be used.”
Perhaps her most sobering warning is what can happen when all of our gung- ho “drive better, get fit” applications and appliances are knitted together: a highly detailed profile the individual has little control over could be used in ways they haven’t even conceived of yet.
Cavoukian right fully brings up the concept of “informational self- determination.” Why are individuals ceding their rights when history has taught us — in appalling detail — what can happen?
It appears George Orwell’s 1984 is around the corner.