Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies

New submitter jbmartin6 writes: The Panopticon may be coming, but perhaps not how we think. Instead of a massive government surveillance program, we might end up subjected to ubiquitous monitoring to save on our insurance premiums. The "internet of things (you can't get away from)" makes this more and more possible. Here a company saved money on its health insurance premiums by distributing Fitbits and an online service to enable reporting fitness gains back to the insurance company. We've already seen the stories on using black boxes to monitor drivers. There is even an insurance company named Panoptic! Heck, why not a premium hike for owners of this or that "aggressiveness gene"? What if in the future we got a quick "+50 cents" tweet for every scoop of ice cream? I suppose the natural stopping point might be the balance between an individual's willingness to be monitored and the desire to reduce insurance premiums.

Comments

Re:It's already going on...

[WhatHump]

I agree...IF the insurance company publicly discloses what it deems is a "good" driver versus a "bad" driver (e.g., stays within xkm/h of the speed limit, makes % mistakes per month like failing to signal), and IF they provide me with every piece of data they collect so I can do my own verification. Otherwise, no way! If I can't audit it, I won't agree to it.