Popular smartphone apps used to track people’s locations and provide weather forecasts may hand over driving data to companies that sell it to insurance companies to set premiums for unsuspecting drivers, according to a report.
Subscription-based apps Life360, MyRadar and Gas Buddy provide user data to Arity, an Allstate company, which crunches the numbers to create a “driving score” that takes into account risky behaviors like distraction behind the wheel, speeding and harsh braking.
That information can then be sold, with the user’s consent, to other insurance companies to set premiums for customers. According to the New York Times.
According to the report, Life360, which parents use to track their children’s location, Gas Buddy, which helps drivers find gas stations that offer the cheapest fuel, and MyRadar, which tracks storms and severe weather, all have opt-in driving analytics features that rely on sensor and behavioral data sent from smartphones.
Gas Buddy’s opt-in feature gives users information about the fuel economy of their driving, and it’s “Arity-powered” technology.
According to Allstate’s website, Arity has collected “more than 1 trillion miles of driving data” that will “help inform how our transportation, insurance and other businesses evolve to better serve customers.”
An Arity spokesperson told the Times that “users agree to Arity’s privacy policy before using the Drives feature.”
But users aren’t told what Arity is or what it does, and the consent form is written in tiny grey font beneath a big red button that says “Join the Drive.”
According to the report, by clicking “Join the Drive,” users consent to sharing “certain information” with Arity and agree to Arity’s hyperlinked privacy policy.
Life360 offers a similar opt-in feature to collect driver location and mobile device sensor data and share it with Arity, “which allows Arity to work with participating insurers to better understand your driving behavior and make offers based on how you drive.” According to the company’s website.
Users can opt out of sharing their personal information by going to the settings feature and clicking on “Privacy and Security.” They can then click on the option that says “Do not sell or share my personal information.”
Kathleen Lomax, a New Jersey resident who paid $100 a year for Life360 to track the locations of her husband and two 18-year-old daughters, told The Times that she canceled her subscription after learning the app sold users’ driving data.
“Nobody who knows what they’re doing would agree,” Lomax said.
A Life360 spokesperson told The New York Times that “no personally identifiable driving data” from Lomax or her family was ever shared with insurance companies, and that app subscribers must always opt-in before their data is passed on to third parties.
The spokesperson also told The Times that Arity must “take steps to work with its partners” to identify Life360 as a data source when using it to calculate insurance quotes.
A Life360 spokesperson told The Washington Post that the New York Times article was “inaccurate and misleading” about the company’s data-sharing policies.
“Life360 will not share personally identifiable driving data with insurers to affect members’ premiums unless a member explicitly requests this,” the spokesperson said.
“We ask for explicit opt-in consent before sharing our members’ personal driving data for personalized insurance quotes.”
The company representative added that the Times “chose to ignore” screenshots of the opt-in screen on the app.
The company said Life360 did not share any of Lomax’s personal driving information “because he did not consent.”
A spokesman said Life360 had “communicated this to both Mr Lomax and The Times”.
Lomax confirmed that his data has never been sold and told The Post that he opted out of the Life360 data-sharing option with Ality.
“While there may be companies that share data with insurance companies without a driver’s full knowledge or consent, Life360 is not one of them,” a company representative told The Post.
The Post has reached out to the Times for comment.
A GasBuddy spokesperson said Arity will provide “enhanced service” and “personalized offers” to users who “choose to opt in.”
According to industry experts, pricing of auto insurance takes into account several data points, including credit history, gender, marital status, age, the type of car driven and where you live.
Michael DeLong of the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America told The New York Times that people with bad credit histories often get charged higher auto insurance premiums even if they have a good driving record.
The Post has reached out to GasBuddy and MyRadar for comment.
An Arity spokesperson told the Post: “Arity partners with mobile app publishers to provide valuable features, such as crash detection and improved fuel economy, to users who opt-in to those services.”
“To take advantage of personalized auto insurance pricing, consumers must clearly and explicitly opt-in to allowing Arity to create and send a summary of their driving data via the Arity IQ network. Consumers can also request a copy of this driving report once they opt-in to sharing their driving data for personalized insurance quotes,” a company representative told the Post.
Earlier this year, drivers reported that their insurance premiums had gone up because the car companies they bought their cars from were sending data about their driving habits to insurance companies without their knowledge.
