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Phone App That Watches Your Driving Habits Leads To Privacy Concerns
Toshito writes Desjardins Insurance has launched a smartphone app that tracks driver behaviour in return for the promise of substantial savings on car insurance. Two years ago, Desjardins began offering a telematic device that plugs into a vehicle's diagnostic port, to track acceleration, hard braking and the time of day you were driving, for instance. Now, there's no plug-in device required. With Desjardins's new Ajusto app, all you need is your smartphone. But this comes with great concerns over privacy, and problems have been reported where the device was logging data when the user was riding a bus instead of driving his own car.
Isn't the 'app' development process to the point where you don't even consider shipping until you've built at least one egregious privacy issue into your product?
What if you just have your phone turned off when you drive, or don't take it with you in the first place?
I'd imagine there might be an issue if you filed a claim and they looked at the data and said, "Hey, you weren't even in the car!"
"Of course I was! Look at this broken arm!"
"Not according to our data."
"Well, I turned off the phone..."
"Ah! That's against the policy--the phone must be on if you're in the car. We don't have to pay a cent! Whoo hoo!"