"Wobbles the Mind" (wobblesthemind)
06/24/2016 at 08:20 • Filed to: Data
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"Wobbles the Mind" (wobblesthemind)
06/24/2016 at 08:20 • Filed to: Data | 0
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I was thinking, vehicles have the ability to collect a lot of data and information on use. All of which we readily provide and can easily sign over permission to give up when buying a car, insurance, or just without our knowledge if need be. There is a lot of technology proliferating every level of vehicle and something must happen to keep the prices affordable on these vehicles, right? Maybe someone else will pay the difference so that you never see that price increase even when all vehicles receive navigation, voice recognition, proximity sensors, and six exterior cameras as standard features.
Insurance Data
The insurance companies would love to know everything you’re doing! What type of accelerating and braking you do, how much over the limit you travel, distance from other vehicles you keep, and everything else that your vehicle is now readily able to give out information on. Not to mention if every vehicle would record events like dashcams or GM’s performance data loggers are able to do, they would always have video evidence from all vehicles involved when addressing claims. Considering how much we pay to insurance and the fact that it’s mandatory to carry, wouldn’t automakers happily give up their data to insurance bureaus in exchange for a bit of cash and maybe an exchange of information on new customers?
Say you have been driving a Subaru equipped with EyeSight for the last few years and are switching to a Volvo. Subaru isn’t going to give up your past info to Volvo, however you will probably be using the same insurance provider and that provider could very easily exchange that previous information to Volvo so that Volvo knows exactly what kind of background their new customer has. It would be great to know exactly what type of driving backgrounds your brand attracts. Many WRX owners drive like Legacy owners rather than STI owners.
Maybe you change insurance providers, of course Progressive isn’t going to share your info with Geico, however Honda still has your past data which they can provide to Geico for a fee. Either way, there is an exchange of information that the car companies are paying to get from the insurance companies and vice versa! If you change insurance providers and car brands, well all your past info is in a government data base, so they win!
Advertiser Data
How about consumer brands being able to know where your vehicle stops to shop and for how long you are inside a shop? What if they could access exactly what you like or your interests? What if manufacturers allowed them to play ads directly over your audio system, like pop up ads on your screen? I don’t mean over the radio or on your device, but over your actual audio system, cancelling out anything you’re listening to or streaming. As long as the speakers aren’t muted, they can interrupt with a 7 second ad for a product at the store where you shop and happens to be on your left in one mile. How about your navigation system even directing you to the location if you say, “Yes” to the destination aloud?
There’s a lot of cash for car manufacturers in giving this data up to other consumer brands. Imagine your vehicle detecting drowsiness and instead of just a coffee cup icon turning on, an ad for Starbucks plays over the fake induction noises coming from your speakers and the navigation system that isn’t currently in use happens to set itself to the nearest Starbucks. Or better yet, you hit “accept” and your autonomous system kicks in and just heads to that Starbucks. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more partnerships in that direction rather than automaker-to-automaker. I can’t wait for the Land Rover-Lululemon partnered next generation Range Rover Evoque Convertible!
Federal Data
Perhaps you drive a vehicle with a voice recognition system. Well that means there are microphones inside your vehicle, correct? What if certain keywords happen to trigger the microphones to actively begin recording and a certain number of keywords/phrases said within a short amount of time causes your current conversation to move up on a response list? Maybe there is a nearby police vehicle that just so happens to receive a notification of the conversation and your vehicle’s license plate information and real time GPS location happen to pop up for that officer. I mean, who knows?!
Vehicles are never completely off. Your clock is always running and your vehicle is constantly trying to detect the fob, so what’s stopping some entity from accessing your vehicle’s camera system while it’s parked doing nothing? Your rights?! Yeah, you keep thinking that. Wouldn’t it be something if every vehicle was constantly broadcasting its position and identification information? Perhaps federal or local authorities could just access the camera systems of any vehicles within a suspected area and have a look around?
These are just some quick thoughts, but it kind of makes sense why an automaker wouldn’t want to work with Google, Apple, or other automakers if it means losing out on data. In fact, I would say the data is the most valuable thing a consumer has to offer! The automaker could have insurance companies, advertiser contracts/subscriptions, and government authorities pay or subsidize for that data and draw in enough cash to keep their vehicles jam packed with autonomous tech, navigation cameras, voice recognition, dashcams, and all other kinds of neat standard features that somehow only raise the base price of your Nissan Versa from $11,990 to $12,350. Maybe instead of calling OnStar for help, they notice you seem lost and call you?
This is all just a thought though. It isn’t like this is already happening...
nermal
> Wobbles the Mind
06/24/2016 at 08:58 |
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Prepare the tinfoil hats!
My current vehicle has Onstar, and occasionally it takes over my stereo and I get an ad for a paid subscription. Usually yelling some string of obscenities gets it to shut off. So, somebody is definitely listening.
That said, the automakers will probably both charge for the option, then make $$$ selling your data as well. Because Business.
TheRealBicycleBuck
> Wobbles the Mind
06/24/2016 at 10:25 |
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Given that some insurance companies are already trying to get consumers to install OBDII dongles on their cars in the name of better insurance rates; services like OnStar and mapping applications like Waze are already being used to collect consumer data and provide services; and that targeted advertising can be delivered to our phones based on location as determined by GPS, wifi, and bluetooth; then I have no doubts that the companies are already discussing how to leverage all of this data to generate additional income streams in the name of consumer convenience, consumer protection, and consumer services.
How’s that for all of it in a nutshell?
d15b
> Wobbles the Mind
06/24/2016 at 10:55 |
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I would hope that privacy laws ensure this doesn’t happen, especially when it comes to insurance.