I heard about this on the radio (while driving, naturally). I haven't run down all the details, but it brought to mind the "good driving monitor" and the case of the teen driver with a GPS:
The state of Maryland is currently doing a pilot program in which hundreds of teen drivers are getting DriveCams installed in their cars. The DriveCam is a webcam/accelerometer assembly that sits quietly on the rear-view mirror until it registers g-forces it doesn't like. At that point, it records 20 seconds of video and beams it up to the mothership for analysis. A driving expert then assesses the video and sends The Man (in this case the teen's parent/guardian) an email.
The intent (at least in this pilot) seems more educational than punitive; mail tends to be more "You should allow more time to slow down before corners." than "Get this stoplight-running drag-racing menace off the streets," and is aimed at reducing teen driving deaths. Given that teen driving deaths account for a disproportionate fraction of both teen deaths and driving deaths, this seems at least worth consideration [I'm dodging the privacy issues for the moment -- maybe I'll get back to them in a later post].
What do the teens make of it? The teen in the radio piece initially accepted it on the grounds that erm, there wasn't really any choice, but a few months down the road seemed to appreciate the pointers and had learned how not to set it off more than every couple of days. Avoiding an email to Mom and Dad is pretty powerful incentive for a teen -- whether that's incentive to drive carefully or to find a way to disable the device is a different matter.
Showing posts with label driving monitors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving monitors. Show all posts
Friday, February 6, 2009
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The good driving monitor
A while ago I reported the dilemma of a teenager whose stepfather had insisted on his having a GPS unit installed in his car -- and who stood to get out of a speeding ticket as a result. Now car insurance companies are offering the same dilemma to the market at large. Put a monitoring device in your car, and if it shows you drive carefully they'll reduce your rates. If it doesn't -- and keep in mind that everyone thinks they're an above-average driver -- your rates will go up, though not by as much. Here's the breakdown for one company, in relative terms:
Privacy advocates, naturally, have a problem with this. The problem is not the monitoring per se, but that the company effectively owns the data. I don't see why it should have to be that way. Suppose you own your driving data. You can choose to sell access to it in return for cheaper insurance, or you can decline, in which case your insurer will presume you have a reason.
And that's the more subtle consequence: You could be a perfectly good driver, but not like the idea of turning that information over to The Man, and end up paying for the privilege. That's actualy not the case at the moment. The non-monitored driver currently pays less than the monitored "bad" driver. That seems like an unstable situation, though. If such monitors become widespread, the presumptions change, and in any case the actuarial risk has to show up somewhere. Some possibilities:
However, that doesn't mean people can't have control over whether they volunteer the information or not. There are at least two ways to do this. One, which I mentioned in a follow-up, is for you to own your own monitor and decide whether to let it yield up its secrets. The other, which would have much the same effect, would be for your monitor to send its data to your personal datastore, whence you could share it out as you saw fit. In either case the monitor needs to be tamper-resistant, but that's a given.
In any case, add this to the list of "Who owns the data?" cases where the initial answer is "a particular private company" but the eventual answer ought to be "you".
- If the monitor convinces them you drive the way they like, you pay $0.60
- If you don't need no stinking monitor, you pay $1.00
- If the monitor convinces them you drive badly, you pay $1.09
Privacy advocates, naturally, have a problem with this. The problem is not the monitoring per se, but that the company effectively owns the data. I don't see why it should have to be that way. Suppose you own your driving data. You can choose to sell access to it in return for cheaper insurance, or you can decline, in which case your insurer will presume you have a reason.
And that's the more subtle consequence: You could be a perfectly good driver, but not like the idea of turning that information over to The Man, and end up paying for the privilege. That's actualy not the case at the moment. The non-monitored driver currently pays less than the monitored "bad" driver. That seems like an unstable situation, though. If such monitors become widespread, the presumptions change, and in any case the actuarial risk has to show up somewhere. Some possibilities:
- Require that everyone pay the same rate, no matter what. There's no need to gather driving data, but dangerous drivers pay less at the expense of safer drivers.
- Prohibit the use of monitor data in setting rates, but allow accidents, speeding tickets and such to count, as they do now (at least in the US).
- Allow the use of monitor data, but prohibit companies from charging more than X to customers who decline to supply the data. If X is the lowest rate, then no one will volunteer and we're back to the first case. If X is the worst rate, then the non-volunteer rate will come up and/or the worst rate will come down to eliminate the $0.09 difference.
- Do nothing and see what happens.
However, that doesn't mean people can't have control over whether they volunteer the information or not. There are at least two ways to do this. One, which I mentioned in a follow-up, is for you to own your own monitor and decide whether to let it yield up its secrets. The other, which would have much the same effect, would be for your monitor to send its data to your personal datastore, whence you could share it out as you saw fit. In either case the monitor needs to be tamper-resistant, but that's a given.
In any case, add this to the list of "Who owns the data?" cases where the initial answer is "a particular private company" but the eventual answer ought to be "you".
Sunday, November 11, 2007
One teenager's dilemma (and ours)
I heard this on the radio the other day ...
The stepfather of a teenage boy, concerned about the stepson's driving, has a GPS installed in his car. The GPS reports back to its mothership and Dad can log in to check up. It will also email Dad if the car exceeds a given speed. This happens once, resulting in a 10-day loss of car keys.
Not surprisingly, the stepson is not entirely thrilled with the arrangement.
Then one day the stepson gets a speeding ticket. Radar has him going 60+ in a 45. GPS says he was doing the speed limit. As the radio story airs, Dad is in the process of challenging the ticket in court, on the grounds that the GPS is much more reliable than radar. The stepson still hates the GPS, but admits that, just this once, maybe it's not such a bad thing.
And there's the whole privacy dilemma in a nutshell: We'd love to have the cameras running when it benefits us, but the rest of the time, whether we're misbehaving or just being or normal boring human selves, we'd just as soon be left alone.
This is not an entirely new problem, of course. Privacy concerns have been around as long as people have lived around each other, which is pretty much as long as there have been people.
Modern privacy concerns are not so much about whether your neighbor knows what you're up to, but about who gets to be your neighbor and the balance of power between eavesdropper and eavesdroppee. From time to time, technology disrupts that balance (anyone remember party lines?) and society has to work out new rules to reclaim it.
One could make a reasonable theoretical argument that in a rational society, everybody benefits if everybody knows everything about everyone. But society is made up of people and people aren't rational. If the only choices are complete surveillance and complete privacy, I would tend to side with the stepson on this one and go for privacy. Those aren't the only choices, though.
The stepfather of a teenage boy, concerned about the stepson's driving, has a GPS installed in his car. The GPS reports back to its mothership and Dad can log in to check up. It will also email Dad if the car exceeds a given speed. This happens once, resulting in a 10-day loss of car keys.
Not surprisingly, the stepson is not entirely thrilled with the arrangement.
Then one day the stepson gets a speeding ticket. Radar has him going 60+ in a 45. GPS says he was doing the speed limit. As the radio story airs, Dad is in the process of challenging the ticket in court, on the grounds that the GPS is much more reliable than radar. The stepson still hates the GPS, but admits that, just this once, maybe it's not such a bad thing.
And there's the whole privacy dilemma in a nutshell: We'd love to have the cameras running when it benefits us, but the rest of the time, whether we're misbehaving or just being or normal boring human selves, we'd just as soon be left alone.
This is not an entirely new problem, of course. Privacy concerns have been around as long as people have lived around each other, which is pretty much as long as there have been people.
Modern privacy concerns are not so much about whether your neighbor knows what you're up to, but about who gets to be your neighbor and the balance of power between eavesdropper and eavesdroppee. From time to time, technology disrupts that balance (anyone remember party lines?) and society has to work out new rules to reclaim it.
One could make a reasonable theoretical argument that in a rational society, everybody benefits if everybody knows everything about everyone. But society is made up of people and people aren't rational. If the only choices are complete surveillance and complete privacy, I would tend to side with the stepson on this one and go for privacy. Those aren't the only choices, though.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
GPS, transportation and privacy
An advocacy group representing about 20% New York's yellow cabs is calling a strike [This link has rotted away] for today and tomorrow over an upcoming requirement for cabs to carry a GPS and credit card payment system. The cabbies' beef, of course, is that this will allow The Man to know exactly where they are and have been. The Man, of course, argues that this will be better for customers and ultimately for the cabbies as well.
Long-haul truckers have been through the same conflict. As I understand it, GPS in some form is a fact of life, but there is definitely still resistance to increased monitoring.
I'm not going to take a position here on who's right. It's worth thinking over, though. Three are some pretty similar, and significant, privacy issues in the 4G picture I painted, and which various players are working hard to make happen.
Long-haul truckers have been through the same conflict. As I understand it, GPS in some form is a fact of life, but there is definitely still resistance to increased monitoring.
I'm not going to take a position here on who's right. It's worth thinking over, though. Three are some pretty similar, and significant, privacy issues in the 4G picture I painted, and which various players are working hard to make happen.
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