Slashdot Mirror
Online Behavior Could Influence Insurance Rates
storagedude writes "There seems to be no end to the ways your personal data and online behavior can be used against you. According to the Wall Street Journal, insurance companies are considering using online behavioral and social networking data to try to weed out insurance risks. What you read, what you buy, how much TV you watch, your credit, your fan pages... it could all be used to predict your longevity and insurance risk. The practice, which appears to be in the early stages, could raise concerns with the FTC and insurance regulators, but insurance and data mining companies say they just plan to use it to speed up the applications of people who appear to be good risks; others would have to go through more rigorous traditional screening."
who posts to this thread...
And TSA x-rays are just to reduce the number of people who have to be submitted to TSA groping.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
...of those 'calculate your death-date' sites... Never thought anyone would take them seriously, much less corporations...
Some members of an auto-cross club posted pictures of a recent event on a forum and got their insurance cancelled.
I've got an STD facebook group.
Habitual slashdot use bodes well for your insurance rate. Mom's basement is pretty safe and the chances of catching an STD are as limited by the low probability of meeting a female in real life.
it could all be used to predict your longevity
I hope they don't data-mine my email then!
Here is what will happen:
1) People will "game" the system to get cheaper quotes (e.g. fake browser history, fake cookies, etc).
2) Some insurance company which doesn't really understand technology will either sue a client, or try and withhold a payout
3) A 70 year old judge will agree that fake browser history (or "privacy" as I like to call it) is fraud
4) A law will be passed making it illegal to tamper with or destroy your browsing history, or to attempt to avoid tracking while online
That should make me one of the safest customers.
Right?
They certainly don't need to worry about me wrecking since I'm not driving, or chopping my finger off with a saw since I'm not working. I just sit and avoid risk.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Deloitte and the life insurers stress the databases wouldn't be used to make final decisions about applicants.
Bullshit.
She also says that, while Acxiom does store personally identifiable information, it doesn't store or merge anonymous online-tracking data, such as Web-browsing records.
Bullshit.
Units of News Corp., including The Wall Street Journal, supply information to marketing-database firms and buy information from them. "We have strict precautions around confidentiality," a spokeswoman said.
Bullshit.
The insurer says pilot projects with marketing data are continuing in its effort to improve clients' buying experience.
Bullshit.
All these quotes were made by PR and corporate stooges. Does anyone honestly think they would tell the real story?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Even if you understand the risks *now* to your privacy, people will find ways to abuse it later.
Therefore, the only real safeguard is anonymity and the ability to hide who you are online. All other arguments against anonymity are always made by people who stand to make more money or having more control by knowing everything about you with your online persona. For everyone else, you're better off being completely anonymous online except when you choose to reveal yourself.
Because of the volumes of insurance contracts processed by small companies (foreclosure situations case in point), anyone who does not 'fit the mold' of the initial screen will probably be rejected.
I myself needed to take up a loan once here in the UK because I had after a year-long degree managed to secure a high paying job, but needed to secure the last rent payment. If my bank had shut down my account it would have been a terrible blow to my reputation at the new firm. Unfortunately all loan applications are processed by screens, and they all look ask whether you have worked in gainful employment for the last 6 months or something along those lines (yes, even my own bank).
Despite having a signed contract to come in at £80k I could not even borrow £500 at a lender charging 2000%.
In consumer banking and finance screens are almighty and firms will simply reject whoever doesn't pass them. There is no reason why the situation for social patterns that need manual processing to end up differently from income patterns that need manual processing.
The First Amendment becomes meaningless as limits to speech come more and more from the corporate sector. In a world where everything you do and say is recorded and databased, and where industries (like insurance) are increasingly dominated by just a few players, stepping out of line even once can have dire consequences. The blacklist is back.
Insurance companies will use whatever information they can get their hands on to try and make sure that what they get paid for providing insurance is appropriate for the risk profile of who/what they are insuring.
It is a core part of their business model to correctly determine the risk profiles of the individual/situation for which they are providing insurance so that they charge the right premium and in aggregate make a profit.
Many of us want to make sure that our genetic information doesn't get collected at thrown into a public database because it would sooner or later end up in the hands of insurance companies and affect our personal premiums for everything from medical insurance to car insurance.
Assuming Slashdot karma is beneficial.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Ok well there are several ways to go:
1. Become a hippy and forgo all things digital. You may be able to shower in peace, but if you live in the woods no one will come looking for you anyway so you are pretty safe.
2. Become a politician or lawyer (is there really a difference?) and fight back. Although your soul may be required as payment to become a politician or lawyer so you may not actually fight back.
3. Create a large corporation and fight back. However, see #2 for potential required payment.
4. Create a way more extreme and way more controversial method for tracking. Make it so damn invasive and humiliating that people would see reasons for privacy. CRAP, the TSA has done this already and it didn't work!
OK, well I am out of ideas. Long live privacy! Privacy is dead! (Note to my insurance companies: I love you guys and I took the train to work so I don't put many miles on my car and always obey the speed limit so I am a safe driver and I swear I am eating healthy today. Uh, we are having lean turkey for Thanksgiving and my bowel movements are fine, thanks so much for caring!!! All the best to my favorite insurance companies in the world. You guys know who you are! Oh and um, those TSA scanner things, they add about 35 - 50 pounds to your actual weight, just so you know.).
I buy platinum insurance for all my ships. Since I'm already at the top rate, it can't go up any further...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
the new health care bill bans pre-existing conditions and makes it so you can't be turned down and any ways how do they even known they have the right name if they just use Google?
We see this reality at play everywhere from religion to medicine to the stock market. Anti-gun people even today have conveniently ignored the positive effects of concealed handgun licenses across the US and continue to cry "blood in the streets."
And of course insurance companies are looking for new excuses to raise rates. (How often do you see rates decline? Not often... I have USAA insurance, but they seem the be the only exception... my rates went down again with my most recent renewal.) Greed knows no limits. It's the justification and reasonableness that are growing more and more scarce.
I would say that this is "old news" or not news at all if it weren't for the fact that people simply need to learn to accept and embrace certain aspects of the reality of human nature that are continually used against us all. We don't use facts when fear is so much more effective at getting the immediate results desired.
They have an increased risk that you might potentially be a person who has, or has family who have, a given condition. Therefore you should pay more for insurance, because you (or someone who could be mistaken for you) presented some interest in Percutaneous Transhepatic Cholangiography, for example.
This is not good, not good at all...wait, what? Posting on Slashdot just lowered my rates by 15% or more?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I was lucky enough to think of using a pseudonym the first time I got online through a 2400 bps modem and I have kept that since then. It was really useful when I got hired as programmer for a defense contractor, I caught my manager goggling me and of course he found nothing. I use fake names in social networks... my friends know who really I am.
Only websites where I use my real identity are the ones who already got my personal info through other means (banks, credit cards, insurance, etc).
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
which means we need legislation to be prepared.
IAAIB (I am an insurance broker, not in the US though), and do online stuff for a living. This doesn't mean I'm qualified, I simply see how the insurance companies work.
It is an integral part of an insurer's business to screen as much information as possible on a risk. In some countries its a LAW that the insurer has to behave like this.
Remember, in an ideal world, the best interest of the insurer IS the best interest of all other insured parties. Having an Insurer fail is a BIG issue. It's at least 150 years that most legislations have this kind of attitude.
The only possible, partial, solution to the online data scraping and/or worse the genetic data screening, is to mandate by law that the insurer disclose, to each submitter individually, the info used to screen him AND the related result for each datum.
See you posted on facebook a 2 am +5% premium.
Look at this gene! We won't cover heart attacks.
Information is POWER. Information wants to be free.
The bad isn't that the insurer finds and uses information (good luck regulating that effectively anyways).
The REALLY BAD is the insurer knows you much better than you ever will at least in respect to risk. And this takes your freedom away.
... use them
Right, they can't turn you down, but what's stopping them from setting the rate at a ludicrous amount because they noticed you just searched Bing for diabetes?
"You can't be turned down" is irrelevant because they can charge you whatever they want.
Never been on it, never will.
Looks like I have to be more careful if I look up Need For Speed or Gotham Racing... I obviously have a thrill for high speed street racing... I just hope they don't see that I also checked out GTA, I don't want them to find out I like to make bonfires from pileups!
it's not information unless you are giving the odds; or make a definitive statement.
Are you claiming that Google is selling browser history data to the health care industry?
How much is being paid?
Exactly who is buying.
I suspect that this is not the case since this would fundamentally destroy their business and they are or at least should be sensible enough to recognize this.
Rather, I suspect, but can not as yet prove, that it is the health care industry mining data from social networking sites and on-line marketers that are the primary culprits in this. Exactly, how much is being paid to and by who needs to be the subject of a much wider debate. Otherwise, the entire concept of American democracy is dead.
While this is one possible outcome, I highly doubt it will ever happen as you describe it. Your typical computer user is not even going to be aware of how companies mine data on them, let alone be able to "game" the system through fake histories and cookies. Sure, they might be aware that "companies" are collecting personal information about them -- but only in the general sense. The only real safe way to prevent this is to keep internet usage to a minimum -- which will never happen. The only way your scenario will even be partially realized is when a company makes that process of faking histories and cookies as easy as installing a plugin. And then it will be said company that might have to face any related circumvention laws.
I was lucky enough to think of using a pseudonym the first time I got online through a 2400 bps modem and I have kept that since then. It was really useful when I got hired as programmer for a defense contractor, I caught my manager goggling me and of course he found nothing. I use fake names in social networks... my friends know who really I am.
do you really think that makes you hard to find? first of all, are you 100% sure you never used your real name and pseudonym in the same place, or in places that are associated in some way?
second: social networks. i just need to know 1 of your friends who happens to use his real name on facebook, and I will be able to find you. did you know that facebook considers certain information public,regardless of your privacy settings, and that this information includes your list of friends?
Health insurance companies often send private investigators after people who they think might be feigning injury. I've heard of this happening about a decade ago.
Car insurance companies send lookouts to street racer hangouts and sometimes even 100% legal track meets to look for customers to cut off (almost all insurance contracts say that participating in a timed run or contest of speed is not covered. It's standard procedure for us low-budget racers to get a barebones insurance package for our streetable track rats and just not tell the insurance companies shit...we fix our own vehicles of course and pay for separate event insurance, so the insurance company basically gets free money for giving us a piece of paper we need in case we get pulled over, but they aren't happy with this for some reason.)
This isn't even the first instance of insurance company spying ON THE INTERNET - a couple of years ago there was a story of a depressed woman cut off from her health care insurance because she posted a happy status update and a pic of her smiling to her Facebook page.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Its really the result of two fundamental trends:
1) The War in Afghanistan and against "terror" is being lost and there really are more "imminent threats" out there. Al Qieda is now publishing a magazine that attempts to target third parties to join in on ways to destroy our economy. One article instructs folks how to make bobby trapped parcels and suicide bombs for travelers.
2) For those corporations and their owners who make huge money off security, defense contracting, militarism, and the overall trappings of a police state, the highly visible and intrusive procedures are designed to instill a sense of fear and submission by the public to the concept of more and more need for these services. Soon TSA will be privatized, republicans are already pushing for this, and there will be two lines at airports, bus and train stations, the sign on the one leading to the x-ray scanners will read "cancer", the other leading to the pat-down room will say "humiliation". Of course, the top 1% and politicians will not be inconvenienced as they get pre-cleared to walk around both.
The only way to stop this, and perhaps the war as well, is for the public to demand legislation that requires that ALL federal employees, specifically including senators, representatives, and senior executive branch staff be required to go through the same lines and be videoed in a highly public way to demonstrate that they too are getting the same treatment. Likewise, no private airplane, carrying lobbyists, CEO, etc. can leave the runway until ALL passengers have likewise gone through the lines and have their pictures taken in the process to prove it.
"You can't be turned down" is irrelevant because they can charge you whatever they want.
And even better, you can't turn them down, because under Obamacare, you have to have insurance even if they set the premium so high that you can't afford it. This will be the best thing to happen to the insurance companies since, well, everything else that has happened to the insurance companies. Thank you Obama, for bailing out the already rich insurance companies.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Obamacare limits how much they can bill for that.
Obamacare is setup to kill insurance companies and make there be only a 1 player system.
I see no issue at all in insurance companies and others being allowed to study our personal data.All we are talking about is limiting the ability of people to commit fraud. For example a person might consider themselves as living a healthy lifestyle whereas the objective data might reveal a lot of very risky behavior. As we now make a transition from private health care to public health care there are less and less reasons to hide the truth. For example if our cars could communicate with our insurance companies we might find a whole bunch of people that tend to speed a lot and run red lights when they feel a certain mood. Getting bad drivers off the roads save lives. Does the truth fail to set us free?
So, people sign up for a bunch of running events online (5k,10k,marathons, etc) with the goal to convince their insurance provider they're active healthy adults. But then because they paid for the events, they actually train and participate, hence becoming active healthy adults. That'll show 'em... The insurance companies won't see it coming.
Wait, really?
The government sets limits to the price of various health services?
Well that was easy then. Now they can do that then what's the point of insurance companies?
It's not called Obamacare, you jackass. Sounds like a Bushism.
Insurance company's roll after that is to offer coverage for things that aren't normally covered.
So instead of starting at ground zero, you start with coverage, and have the option to go higher with insurance companies.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
At some point someone needs to tell the insurance companies that they are in business to provide INSURANCE against risk. If the consumer has no risk to insure against, their services are kind of pointless.
Finally, someone wants to hear all about your aches and pains!
Give him a break, forming rational thought is a lot more work then spewing talking points handed to him from the high and holy talking heads.
Now they can do that then what's the point of insurance companies?
Which was the entire point of Obamacare you fsckwit.
I foresee a market in creating fake online presences which indicate perfect health, great genes, fantastic credit history etc.