Comment by pdkl95

8 years ago

The most obvious use is insurance companies looking for excuses to deny claims.

Or maybe parallel construction used to deny/approve loans. E.g. I can't weight the loan approval negatively specifically bc the person is black, but the GPS information suggests they frequent black areas.

But really every use of this information is highly assymetrical. If they're using it to trade stocks, while regular people are using traditional means, it's an advantage we don't have access to. This is basically the virtual castle walls keeping us peasants out in the fields. Modern feudalism.

As blocking fraudulent claims could remove a reason for my premiums to he higher, I can't say I'm against that.

With the caveat, for course, that people are not always where their phone is so this taken on its own would be circumstantial evidence: one would hope decisions are not made directly based on this information.

  • It’s not in the interest of insurance companies to lower premiums. They only do it if competition is eating them alive. Geico has been raising their margins ever so slightly. I bet they are also the purchasers of ungodly amounts of data for targeting marketing.

    Insurance companies #1 goal is to make maximum profits for their shareholders without getting caught with their pants down.