Posted on 06/11/2024 7:16:13 AM PDT by george76
Popular smartphone apps used to track people’s location and provide weather reports may hand over driving data to a firm that sells the information to insurance companies for the purposes of setting rates for unsuspecting motorists...
apps Life360, MyRadar and Gas Buddy are providing user data to an Allstate-owned company, Arity, which computes the numbers to create a “driving score” that takes into account any risky behavior behind the wheel...
That information is then sold to other insurance firms — with user consent — which set rates for their customers
...
Life360, which is used by parents to keep track of their kids’ locations; Gas Buddy, which helps drivers find gas stations that offer the cheapest fuel; and MyRadar, which tracks storms and inclement weather, all have opt-in driving analysis features that rely on sensor and motion data transmitted by smartphones, according to the report.
The opt-in feature for Gas Buddy gives users information on the fuel efficiency for their drives — a technology that is “powered by Arity.”
...
Life360 offers a similar opt-in function which collects drivers’ geolocation and mobile device sensor data and then shares it with Arity “so they can work with participating insurance companies to better understand how you behave behind the wheel and make offers based on how you drive
...
Kathleen Lomax, a New Jersey resident who paid for a $100 annual subscription to Life360 in order to track the location of her husband and her two 18-year-old daughters, told the Times that she canceled the app when she learned that it was selling users’ driving data.
...
drivers reported that their insurance rates went up after the car companies from which they bought their vehicle sent data about their driving behavior to issuers without their knowledge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
If something is free, YOU are the product.
Life360 is a great app. But they have to go and ruin it.
I get criticized a lot for not having every single app installed on my smartphone. Seems like many places want you to have an app installed in order to get certain discounts at their place of business (retail stores, restaurants, etc.). The apps are just another way of tracking your purchases and selling that information to others. No thanks.
you are correct. Also, paying for the app is tantamount of them getting all your info and your consent. Using it for free and the subsequent data is not what the third parties are primarily interested in.
Apps do all sorts of things, just like this, and we let them run in the background and see all of the other apps we have. They also get access to any location or contacts you allow.
Websites don't.
We use the GasBuddy website for quick prices, but never log in.
I guess everyone needs a burner phone to use for anything which could be data mined and then your normal ‘bare’ phone for calls.
Apps all have backdoors and you agree to the 25 pages of legalese when you install.
Only an idiot signs up for this.
I swear there’s no speed limit in Nebraska on i-80
If they used the data to adjust my rates vs the idiots on the road, I wouldn’t care.
Always turn off background processing and location service access for all apps. If needing location for an app, set it to prompt each time or only asses location while using the app.
These are easy to find and change in your phone’s Settings area.
Everyone could use a burner phone.. yo, 1996 called and wants their burner phone back..
I’m turning into Gibbs and going to get a flip phone!
I bet criticized a lot for not having a cell phone at all. But I am running more and more into things where they demand a cell phone- for now, I just shop elsewhere if that is a requirement.
No kidding, 50 years of driving, one ticket at age 18 (Carter did the 55 mph BS and I drove over 6 hours to university) never a single at fault accident and still paying as if I am 17.
p
All I have is a flip phone, and it spends about 99% of its time turned off in a desk drawer. Never installed any app on it. My wife does have a smart phone, though, and I don’t know what apps are on it.
The app craze has gone insane. We parked in a municipal lot in Leavenworth, Washington last fall. You needed an app to pay for parking!! I had to download the app, create an account, set up username and password, add all my phone, email and address data, create a virtual credit card number on the Capital One app (I use them for all web purchases), add the credit card info...and I could FINALLY pay for parking. We wasted 20 minutes doing all that crap.
When we walked out of the lot, we found a pay by credit card kiosk! The signs in the parking stalls only told you about the app, not that there was a payment kiosk nearby. I was so PISSED OFF.
We got back to the car ten minutes after our time limit expired. Why wasn’t the app smart enough to automatically buy me another 15 minutes of time? Sure enough, got a $70 ticket.
I wrote to the city and explained how awful the entire process was and they cancelled the ticket.
I swear some brain-dead 20 year old idiot in the city selected that app for parking without once thinking about the user experience.
Later, on the same trip, we found parking in Jasper, Alberta to be a breeze. You scan a QR code on the meter, double-click and pay by Apple Pay. Piece of cake. Took ten seconds. What a contrast to Leavenworth!
“... a New Jersey resident who paid for a $100 annual subscription to Life360 in order to track the location of her husband and her two 18-year-old daughters, told the Times that she canceled the app when she learned that it was selling users’ driving data.”
I hope that she does not assume that the cancellation means that the app no longer collects your driving data. The data is still a viable product that Life360 can sell. So even if you are not paying for the app, your data can still make money for Life360.
When you cancel or stop using an app, delete it completely from your phone.
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