
Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you - eplanit
https://www.chron.com/opinion/article/Data-isn-t-just-being-collected-from-your-phone-15449776.php
======
Eyght
I feel like the Chinese style social score system won't have enough support in
government for most countries, but we'll receive a decentralized version
anyway through corporate overreach.

Also, it's always amusing to arrive at an article about data collection and be
greeted by this:
[https://i.imgur.com/d4Z4sdd.png](https://i.imgur.com/d4Z4sdd.png)

~~~
cactus2093
The credit system in the US is already a pretty horrific version of this, and
nobody really seems to care and it’s been like this for decades. And it’s not
even just used for credit anymore, renting an apartment now usually requires a
credit check.

I had thought credit karma and similar services were at least adding
transparency to the industry but was recently in for a rude awakening when
trying to get preapproval for our first mortgage. It turns out, the whole idea
of a credit score is kind of a lie. Your credit report can be pulled by
creditors, and creditors can interpret it in different ways as they see fit.
Services like credit karma are just making up their own score based on the
report which can be drastically different than what the creditor decides it
is. And credit pulled for different uses somehow ends up with different
scores, e.g. for a credit card approval your score will often show up higher
than for a mortgage. You can check your credit report for free, as required by
law, but nobody is required to tell you your credit score. You can also
basically just pay to remove many things from your credit report.

It’s insane and the fact that this fairly old and low-tech institution has not
managed to be regulated successfully or made fair to the average person, bodes
very poorly IMO for regulation of privacy and fairness based on future
technology.

~~~
lotsofpulp
> You can check your credit report for free, as required by law, but nobody is
> required to tell you your credit score. You can also basically just pay to
> remove many things from your credit report.

There is no “the credit score”. Any lender is free to use whatever scoring
algorithm they like. And they do. Some lenders may choose to use certain
scores for certain things, but underwriting has no obligation to use one
specific credit score.

Therefore there is no reason for people to care about their credit score,
whether it be from FICO or credit karma or whoever.

The only thing you should do is make sure information on the credit report is
accurate. And what is your source for claiming you can pay to get things
removed from credit score? It doesn’t even make sense, as it just shows the
status of your lines of credit. You can’t just make a line of credit disappear
as no credit reporting agency or financial institution is going to want to
commit fraud for any amount of money that an average person might offer.

~~~
njarboe
Credit reporting agencies and financial institutions commit fraud all the
time. They call it identity theft so that you think it is your fault instead
of their fault. No one would care about a bank giving a loan to a person that
was impersonating them except for the fact that the bank (credit card,
mattress store, car dealership, etc) commits fraud and reports to the credit
agency that you have defaulted on your loan when you have not. Then the credit
reporting agency also commits fraud when they sell this false and damaging
information to others.

This is the big lie. That "identity theft" should be the problem of the person
who was impersonated. Pass laws that heavily fine entities that give false
information to credit bureaus and fine credit bureaus who give out false
information. "Identity theft" would no longer be something that people would
worry about.

~~~
gruez
>Credit reporting agencies and financial institutions commit fraud all the
time. They call it identity theft so that you think it is your fault instead
of their fault. No one would care about a bank giving a loan to a person that
was impersonating them except for the fact that the bank (credit card,
mattress store, car dealership, etc) commits fraud and reports to the credit
agency that you have defaulted on your loan when you have not.

That's literally what not fraud is.

>In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or
to deprive a victim of a legal right

If some guy walks into a bank and claim they're you and they believe it, the
banks aren't gaining anything. If anything, they lost money. Wrongly reporting
the default to the CRAs also doesn't benefit them either; it's not like they
compensate the banks based on how many default reports they send in. Finally,
it's missing the "intentional" part. Lax security practices are negligence at
best.

~~~
bsanr2
>If some guy walks into a bank and claim they're you and they believe it, the
banks aren't gaining anything.

They would have just sold a loan.

>If anything, they lost money.

Can't they sell the defaulted loan to collections?

>Lax security practices are negligence at best.

Systemic, known, and long-standing negligence speaks to intention.

~~~
gruez
>They would have just sold a loan.

Yeah, that's what their _books_ say, but that doesn't necessarily match
reality. In reality they gave $1000 in cash to someone, and their _expected
return_ on that is a fraction of that. Same logic if you bought paid $800 for
bonds with face value of $1000, but unknown to you, the bonds are actually
junk bonds with a expected value (factoring in repayment and default) of $500.
In that case your paper gains are $200, but in reality you actually lost $300.

>Can't they sell the defaulted loan to collections?

They gave the bad guy a loan for $1000. They're out $1000. They sell the loan
to collections for $300, they're still out $700.

>Systemic, known, and long-standing negligence speaks to intention.

Security exists on a spectrum, and there are trade-offs to be made. Clearly
the banks don't have an _interest_ in selling fraudulent loans, and putting up
too much barriers when it comes to authentication also has costs.

~~~
bsanr2
Does... interest stop being a factor? They gave an x-year loan for $1000 at x%
APR (was it subprime?). Also, penalties. Collections can go after you for the
full amount. They buy it from the bank for the original $1000+.

Or, the loan hasn't defaulted yet. The bank suspects it will. They load it
into a bundle, get it highly-rated, sell the bundle. They make a profit. A
whole bunch of other people get hosed.

>Clearly the banks don't have an interest in selling fraudulent loans

This is the wrong decade to be making that statement.

------
cosmodisk
People are complex. If some piece of code is used to predict my employability
based on my facial expressions, there's not much to add. It's already as bad
as it gets: you can't say/write anything non vanilla in public because 10
years later some HR snooping app will analyze the sentiment on the post and
outright reject you. And we all kind of blindly walking into this no questions
asked.

~~~
annoyingnoob
At least the Chinese system is out in the open.

Many private companies surveilling everyone without anyone's knowledge is
terrible. Companies using these scores are really only targeting a group of
people that allow the collection to happen.

My car insurance company would sure love to put a tracker in my car but there
is no way in hell that is going to happen. I'm sure my driving style would
qualify me for higher rates, yet I've never caused an accident or made a claim
where I was at fault.

~~~
icedistilled
Yes they would, but the flip side of them not being able to price people based
on actual driving behavior is by charging all men higher, all single people
higher vs married people, and poor people higher based on credit score.

Plus why single out insurance companies and ban them from creepily tracking
you wherever you go and not all the other companies who do that with your cell
phone.

Also to be pedantic, the don't want to put trackers in the car, that is
expensive. They want to use your cell phone like all the other apps tracking
you, or they want the car manufactures to let them in on their data since most
modern cars have the ability to track and broadcast location.

>made a claim where I was at fault.

That's a big caveat. There are plenty of accidents that are truly not one
parties fault, but according to law even being judged as 49% at fault is still
"not at fault". And even in cases of 0% at fault as determine by the insurance
adjusters, theres a big chance one still had contributing factors.

Also, there's a big chance not at fault claims will be taken into account when
pricing you and raise your prices. Just right??

On the other hand, not at fault accidents do correlated with higher risk, and
it's easy to see why. For example, people who get rear ended are not at fault.
But following the car ahead too closely leads to needing to brake harder,
increasing the chance of being rear ended. Following too closely also
increases the chance of rear ending the vehicle in front.

~~~
annoyingnoob
I was rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic. The same person was behind me for
miles. He was looking at his phone and ran into me - totally and completely
not my fault. He refused to give me his insurance info. I made a claim against
my own insurance. I'm pretty sure the insurance company went after him and
recovered costs. How exactly should that influence my rates? This is exactly
why I pay for insurance, service I already pay for that is already factored
into the costs. I pay extra for the zip code I live in already.

I have no driving record and I've caused no accidents. If I put a tracking
device in my car today my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and
brake hard when conditions allow. That is not right.

~~~
shuntress
Your insurance company would prefer to cover people who notice the reckless
driver then pull over to get out of their path.

You did not do that, so they raise your rates.

Edit: not that you were at fault or did anything wrong.

My point is that the insurance companies strongest incentive is to pay out as
little as possible. This includes payments made where their client was not at
fault. If it were up to them, everyone would pay all their premiums on time
and never drive.

~~~
annoyingnoob
They recovered their costs. I already pay for the service. Tracking is just
another excuse to raise rates, which as you note is the goal (bring money in,
don't let it out). When rates have nothing to do with liability is it really
insurance?

To quote wikipedia: If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the
cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to
the amount of protection offered, then it is not likely that the insurance
will be purchased, even if on offer. Furthermore, as the accounting profession
formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be
so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the
insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, then the transaction may have the
form of insurance, but not the substance (see the U.S. Financial Accounting
Standards Board pronouncement number 113: "Accounting and Reporting for
Reinsurance of Short-Duration and Long-Duration Contracts").
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance)

~~~
shuntress
You pay either way.

It's not about covering costs to provide a needed service. That would be a
public service

This is a private company looking for profit. They want to raise your rates.

~~~
annoyingnoob
What you are talking about would no longer be considered insurance.

> the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting
> standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable
> chance of a significant loss to the insurer

The vast majority of automobiles do not hold their value, they depreciate over
time. If I've had my car for say 5 years and I've paid the premiums for 5
years, I may have already paid the full value of my car as it is today due to
depreciation. I probably pay for one minor incident per year in premiums.
Unless I total my within the first 5 years I'm not really getting insurance
what I'm really getting is a payment plan for a payout I most likely will
never get.

~~~
chordalkeyboard
The payout is the risk you transferred to the insurance company. You’re not
“supposed” to get all your premiums back because then why would anyone start
an insurance company? Its not a bank account, its more like a lottery ticket.
The insurer assumes risk of covering an accident in exchange for the
guaranteed income of your monthly premiums. In return you exchange a fixed
regular payment for protection against an unlikely event. In order for this
arrangment to work, the insurer must make a profit.

You might understand this but many people today do not, which is why they
expect medical insurance to cover 100% probability events like an annual
checkup with the primary care physician.

~~~
annoyingnoob
I'm not asking for my premiums back and don't expect it. Just saying that
after 5 years of premiums the insurance company would be break even on that
policy. If premiums are high enough its not really insurance. Not that
everyone has the same insurance company but generally if everyone has paid
premiums that meet the value of the car after 5 years then all of the
insurance company risk is with cars less than 5 years old. The insurance
company will keep pushing for more intrusion into your life to 'give you the
best rate' but really you'll just pay more. Like you said if it wasn't
profitable then no one would do it. Making apps and integrating with
telematics doesn't come for free and its not coming out of the insurance
company bottom line.

~~~
chordalkeyboard
well how much capital are you investing for 5 years at zero percent return? I
think if that was required for an insurance company there would be no
insurance companies.

> Making apps and integrating with telematics doesn't come for free and its
> not coming out of the insurance company bottom line.

yes, it is. their bottom line has to make room for that by increasing prices.
in insurance as in anything, you get what you pay for.

------
dijksterhuis
I remember once being in a branch of HSBC trying to sort out a loan. I saw on
the screen for my account they had a score of something like "customer
behaviour", which was like 54 something.

I had drunkenly called HSBC and ended up ranting at the person on the phone a
few times (lost cards etc) so I _think_ this was a rating of how well behaved
I was towards their staff.

The manager I was speaking to changed his tone fairly quickly after that
screen came up!

So this is nothing new, but I guess the scale and opportunities for data
points are new.

Although, having said that, a lot of marketing based scoring data is woefully
inaccurate. I was once responsible for distributing a data set to company
clients which covered interests and personal info for all UK population.

Not only was most of the data about my dad wrong, the things that were
accurate were years out of date.

My information didn't exist. A colleague's email was completely wrong.
Indicated he liked going on holiday but had never been outside of the UK.

So these scores might be useless anyway.

edit: got rid of "even if they exist".

~~~
elliekelly
It very well might be garbage data but if companies are _acting_ on that data
it’s still highly problematic. Maybe even worse than if the data were
accurate.

~~~
air7
The possible silver lining is that companies will quickly realize the data is
garbage (which is causing then losses) and stop using it.

~~~
vladvasiliu
Depends on how quick is "quickly".

If anything, they seem to be doubling down on this. From my discussions on the
subject with people "in marketing", they are really convinced that not only is
the data "accurate enough", but that collecting and exploiting it is actually
for the client's benefit.

I wonder how one would go about quantifying the usefulness of all this
tracking, because I doubt it's cheap. The best I could get was "we're able to
see changes in sales which correlate to marketing campaigns". I can totally
buy that and it seems somewhat more advanced of an answer than the more common
one of "If didn't work they wouldn't be doing it".

What I wonder though is how they would go about quantifying how much better a
tracking-based campaign worked than a "traditional" one would have.

~~~
kiba
What if most of the marketing is useless in the first place? And most of the
data are useless too.

How would they know?

------
rootusrootus
Aside from being a mostly clickbait puff piece, the solution to this is
regulation. All companies collecting data this way need to be subject to
exactly the same requirements as the credit bureaus. Citizens need to be told
what data is collected, why, when it gets used, and they need easy access to
seeing their own data, as well as a well-regulated method for correcting it.

And we could just dramatically limit how much of this can even be used for
housing and employment decisions, and crank up the penalties for misuse.

~~~
perl4ever
While we're at it, maybe we could enforce easier access to credit information.
One report per year with no credit score is absurdly restrictive.

~~~
LorenPechtel
It was reasonable at the time it was put into place. It's now so much easier
to deal with information, reform is needed but it's not going to happen unless
the Democrats are in control.

What I would like to see is a rule that if a company collects data for more
than in-house use (so it doesn't apply to a company who simply has records of
it's customers) they must make a reasonable effort to notify you and allow you
to examine the data and challenge anything you believe to be incorrect.

~~~
perl4ever
>It was reasonable at the time it was put into place

I don't think so. It's only been around for about 15 years or so. Internet
infrastructure wasn't as advanced then, but neither were there as many people
who would've used it.

The only reason I can see for the state of things is that the credit bureaus
wanted to nickel-and-dime people for credit monitoring, and because they could
water down the regulations, they did.

Another thing that was sorely needed was to make the domain a .gov or
something other than a .com to prevent so many imposters.

And I just now read on Wikipedia a list of companies excluded from the
requirements, like ChexSystems.

------
PeterStuer
Both China and the US are oligarchies. You can argue that in China is is the
government that owns the enterprises, and in the US it is the enterprises that
own the government, but that does not change much.

------
drtillberg
A central premise of this article is not correct. If an employer, for example,
is using tens of thousands of background data points to deny employment to a
person, the employer would need to _disclose_ that to the applicant.[1]. If
the things in this article are _secret_ then the law may well be violated.
Also, not really the best idea to apply secret proprietary algorithms to these
kinds of decisions because you're eventually going to have to disprove
improper bias, which can easily and "systemically" be baked into a background
screening tool.

[1] [https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/background-checks-what-
em...](https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/background-checks-what-employers-
need-know)

~~~
gmantg
No need to disclose anything: plausible deniability is enough. And "bias" can
be fixed by ad-hoc quotas.

~~~
vorpalhex
Why wouldn't an HR person or hiring staffer immediately out the company or
even sue them?

~~~
gmantg
What do you mean? Why wouldn't an HR sue his own employer? Because binding
arbitration and the employer will make sure to destroy the reputation of that
HR.

~~~
trustmeimdrunk
We can answer that question by rephrasing, "why haven't HR employees sued
their employers, time and time again?" then if it interests you personally
pursue precedents.

Or better yet "Why dont employees commit career suicide for relatively minor
offences that dont affect them personally and inflict no direct harm?"

------
grazhero99
Do you guys think there's any realistic hope today (not accounting for what
kind of horrible stuff might be possible in the future) of being able to keep
your 'genuine' online activities separated from your public facing, sanitized
ones? Such that no company's HR department would be able to tie your real life
identity to your real online activities? I imagine it could be possible if
you're serious and rigorous about it.

Or am I being naïve for even entertaining such a thought?

~~~
unnouinceput
Yes, it's possible. Keep your normal public activities boring and straight.
For everything else use TOR/VPN/Proxies/etc.

~~~
joejerryronnie
This exact scenario is what makes Tokyo so exciting.

------
trustmeimdrunk
HR arguably has the most immediate potential gain, and from its new policies
those in the employee pool have the most to lose.

There's a lot of use in applying insurance analysis techniques to filter out
bad hires much better than conventional practices. Instead of interviews,
vetting, tests, headhunters, you can adopt the latest in data analysis to cut
costs and improve your KPIs across the board.

Predict an employee's productivity by analyzing online browsing behavior.
Fixed qualities like attention span and drift; escapism and procrastination;
pleasure-seeking vs productive, curious, prosocial browsing habits. How do
these overlap in a typical workday? Are you focused or dispersed? Does your
attention cycle? Do you complete tasks to the end, what happens when you get
stuck on a problem?

This doesnt even get into friendship networks, purchasing behavior, public
displays of attitudes.

Can you game the system? Probably not. These days that requires you to play a
losing game of tweaking your personality down to the smallest meticulous
detail. Essentially going against the grain of your natural flow ordering all
aspects of your identity to suit an opaque and almost certainly fault-laden.

People flip out about the Chinese social score, without realizing that it was
pioneered in the US private-sector.

Say no to mandatory medical intervention.

Written from my Android 2.2

------
surajs
I'd give the author of this clickbait of a link about a 0

~~~
vorpalhex
Not a single source or citation for some extremely broad claims.

------
DavidPeiffer
When getting insurance quotes, there was a disclosure that a credit check had
been conducted, listed the top 4 items affecting my Risk Score, and gave a
link for questions. I found the guide to all the possible reasons and was
amazed at some of the elements. [1]

* They prefer 84 years of credit history to put you in a lower risk category. Having 2 lines of credit paid every month versus 1 would make a huge difference in this regard.

* Oil company credit cards are seen as very high risk, and even having 1 is seen as a negative.

* Department store credit cards are also viewed negatively.

The weightings and mixing of variables is the secret sauce...but reading
through it all made me very happy with my decision to turn down an offer from
one of the major reporting agencies.

[1] PDF Warning

[https://consumer-
solutions.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/29038...](https://consumer-
solutions.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/2903863/0/filename/Attract+Reason+Codes+v+08.15.pdf)

------
gruez
Article title: Data isn't just being collected from _your phone_ [...]

I skimmed the article and there's little mention of _phone_ data collection.
There's one mention of insurers using phones to collect driving data, but
that's it. I was expecting some vast surveillance network using your phone to
score you.

------
scarface74
This entire article was a puff piece with no details and definitely didn’t say
anything about phones.

------
mnm1
This should be illegal. The credit unions are bad enough but this is
egregious. Software should not be allowed to affect humans without a complete
explanation of how it works, how it reached its decision, and a human with
authority to appeal to. Frankly, a bunch of the uses here already seem illegal
like denying people the ability to rent or to get a job based on some black
box software that provides hidden information on people. How can we even know
the software isn't something like: if (race === black) deny Application();
Artificial intelligence indeed. From 1820.

------
jermier
There are people out there resisting these efforts. For example, I know people
who are against smartphones and use a so called 'dumbphone' or feature phone
for their main number. If they need to buy groceries, they refuse to use a
loyalty card, and always pay in cash. They typically have a secure and private
laptop with something like Ubuntu on it, and use Firefox with all the anti-
tracking features enabled, and uBlock Origin installed, JS turned off by
default etc. The typical steps people take to minimize their footprint against
these predictive algos

~~~
xwdv
Well then these people are fucked. Much like how using no credit means you
have no credit history and a low credit score, you will have a very hard time
trying to buy a house.

If you spend your whole life being anonymous, be prepared to be treated as a
high risk consumer who cannot participate in certain things, because of a low
social score.

~~~
rhn_mk1
That may well be, but that's not the spirit. Instead, "if we all resisted
more, we'd be free of that crap".

Granted, this is the tragedy of the commons. By acting in one's own interest:
get a good score, people poison the well for everone: everyone must work and
self-censor to keep a good score.

~~~
srveale
What percentage of people do you think are willing to take even one of the
steps mentioned in OP's comment? I'm pessimistic.

------
rapjr9
One thing that could end this is someone hacking into the databases and
changing scores. Say for all the US senators and a few CEO's and celebrities.
It would basically prove that the scores are no longer trustworthy. Not that
they are anyway, but if they start affecting "important" lives things might
change.

I've been wondering if all this data is being used for stock market
manipulation or timing the market. What exactly are those quant's using for
inputs?

~~~
amelius
> One thing that could end this is someone hacking into the databases and
> changing scores.

While they're at it, perhaps they can change some US senators' bank balances
just for fun.

------
speby
We're already "scored" all the time ... all types of insurance, mortgages,
credit ratings, past criminal record, and so on. Now, we may wish to control
the use of data being used on us or against us, and I support that, but to the
degree with which we are being "scored" generally, we are already being scored
all the time across tons of other dimensions and commercial and even
governmental applications.

------
techlaw
There are several comments here about the lack of background info or
citations.

The authors have a site which includes their letters to the FTC, etc which
provide greater detail and references:
[https://www.representconsumers.org/surveillance-
scoring/](https://www.representconsumers.org/surveillance-scoring/)

------
gmantg
Surveillance capitalism to the USA is like heroin to an addict: he thinks he
can give up at any time, that he can manage the addiction and find the
balance, until he realises that he is a slave to that addiction and can't
change anything. The Congress could destroy this "big data is the new oil"
business model, but they don't want to give up the money from big tech, they
think they can manage this addiction and find a balance between greed and
freedom, they find excuses that surveillance is a matter of national security
today, but at the end USA will repeat the fate of that addict.

------
vasili111
OK. Now lets look from another perspective. Now when we know that, how to make
system score us high? How to show system what it scores as high and hide what
it scores as low? How to benefit from that system?

------
tobyhinloopen
Funny how the cookie wall is the first thing that pops up.

It’s not a bad one though, to be fair

------
hedora
Huh. I bought a few nice bottles of whiskey and gin at BevMo recently, and
they swiped my drivers license.

Now I get ads for whiskey in the mail. I wonder how much that reduced my
future employment prospects.

~~~
t0mmyb0y
Why in the world would you allow them to swipe your id? Craziness.

------
throwaway_pdp09
The article is about smartphones, not dumbphones. This matters as some people
won't own smartphones for this reason. Not many though, I suppose.

------
d23
Perhaps we can find out what our personal scores are. That would help us
figure out whether we support this or not.

------
aww_dang
If this is true, it could be reverse engineered to increase credit worthiness.

