Great 'U' turns

It seemed like a good idea on the 2^nd Nov 2016

One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain, Admiral, is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.

The Insurer’s algorithm analyses Facebook social media usage in an attempt to identify safe drivers in what is seen as an unprecedented use of customer data. 

The Admiral "firstcarquote" initiative is aimed at first-time drivers or car owners.

The move, an example of what has been termed data grabbing, highlights the start of a new era for how companies are intending to use online personal data. 

It has already started a debate on personal privacy.

Admiral’s tool will analyse the Facebook accounts ,excluding photographs, of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. 

Such traits as;

a)being conscientious 

b)well-organised 

c)writing in short concrete sentences 

d)using lists, and 

e) arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just “tonight” 
will be preferable.

In contrast less favourable traits would be; 

a) being overconfident 

b) use of exclamation marks 

c)frequent use of “always” or “never” rather than “maybe”. 

It does not say what the algorithm would make of the use on social media of words such as smashed, off my head, out of my tree or goofed out.

The scheme is based around algorithms that have been developed specifically by and for Admiral. The technology uses social data to make a personality assessment and then, judging against real claims data, analyse the risk of insuring the driver.

Inevitably the process relies on thousands of different combinations of likes, words and phrases and is constantly changing with new evidence from the data to produce a profile of what a safe driver would be.

The U turn- the very next day

Admiral has withdrawn its data grabbing initiative with only hours to go until the full national launch as privacy campaigners criticise it as an ‘intrusive’ attempt to analyse users’ data

The social media giant Facebook said that the privacy of its users was of the ‘utmost importance’ and that the Admiral initiative breached its privacy rules, in particular citing that the data should not be used to “make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan" 

Facebook and Admiral remain in talks about trying to revive the product, with industry insiders arguing about who was to blame for the last-minute climb down. 

Facebook is understood to have known about "firstcarquote" for months and Admiral have had the product operational on the internet for weeks in a test form.

Privacy campaigners welcomed Admiral’s reversal but said that it was only the start of other companies trying to use personal data in a similar way.

A leading digital rights campaigning organisation, said Admiral’s scheme was “intrusive” being based on what we have said to family, friends and acquaintances on social media.

The fear is that this and other similar intrusive practices could see decisions being made against certain groups based on perceived biases about race, gender, religion, sexuality or just being unconventional. 

The threat that the application of such date could infringe on our day to day lifestyle issues could change how people use social media, for example, encouraging self-censorship in anticipation of future decisions. 

The multi nationals and global corporations may still have something planned for us in the future. 

(Source; The Guardian Newspaper 2016)