Italy is one step ahead on this.... and what is worse... it is VOLUNTARY !!!

Big Brother in our car - the black box warning is privacy
In Italy there are a million. The Guarantor: too much data in the hands of insurance companies. The installation is voluntary and entitles you to discounts. The Authority: rules against abuse. Companies thanks to the gps know where we are going, how we run and how we drive

This is not all. The black box must be marked with a sticker, a special adhesive. And you must ensure "the ability to immediately stop the processing of location data", over the telephone or the Internet. In short, tracing must be disabled by the customer. To avoid that in the computer then the insurance will build databases, information received "you may retain, for tariff purposes, no later than seven days after their acquisition." Then they destroyed or made anonymous.



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Big Brother in our car
the black box warning is privacy
In Italy there are a million. The Guarantor: too much data in the hands of insurance companies. The installation is voluntary and entitles you to discounts. The Authority: rules against abuse. Companies thanks to the gps know where we are going, how we run and how we drive
FABIO TONACCI
ROME - That mountain of data collected by a million black boxes, in the hands of insurance companies, is an injury to the privacy of motorists. "There are too many and too easily managed." So the Guarantor rewrote the draft regulation prepared by Isvap, the Institute of Supervision of Private Insurance, filling it with safeguards to protect users who voluntarily agree to install them on board for discounts on rates. Because those black boxes of things, they know a lot.

They know which roads we traveled, at what time and on what day, how many miles we have done, how many times have slowed or exceeded the limit. Record whatever happens to the vehicle, when we get behind the wheel when we go down. A great deal of information through the GPS antenna is sent in real time to the insurance to be processed (do not know how or by whom) and get in line to report use of the motorist. Or of those who know the password, you will enter in his place. Well, today is the Wild West. And the president of the Privacy Antonello Soro has big stakes like logs in the project "check box" Isvap provided in the decree on liberalization in January. "Companies will be able to process personal data of individuals identified only in case of an accident or at contractual maturity," reads Article 8 of the draft regulation. Only under these conditions will be possible for the company and to the user through applications on the Web, access information collected on car trips. Contrary to how it works now, with free access to both.

This is not all. The black box must be marked with a sticker, a special adhesive. And you must ensure "the ability to immediately stop the processing of location data", over the telephone or the Internet. In short, tracing must be disabled by the customer. To avoid that in the computer then the insurance will build databases, information received "you may retain, for tariff purposes, no later than seven days after their acquisition." Then they destroyed or made anonymous.

How many of these rules, according to the Guarantor necessary, resist the negotiations with Isvap? Difficult to predict. There is a privacy issue, it is visible to all. Today there are 1.2 million black boxes installed in the electronic brain of the 40 million vehicles on the road. Fruit of the quid pro quo between the insured and insurance. The first accepts monitoring in exchange for a premium discount Rc car that can go up to 20-30 per cent. The company on the other hand, identify subjects with guide potentially at risk, thanks to the data on braking, the average speed, lateral acceleration undergone by the vehicle during the march. So can custom tariff plans. And you contrast the fraud of false incidents, which in 2010 were almost seventy thousand, 2.3 per cent of all reported. The black box it becomes aware of a left when it detects a strong deceleration of the vehicle (or the airbag) and records the dynamic in the 40 seconds before and 10 after the impact. Unable to stage fake accidents to have real compensation.

And though the future of the black boxes for cars is far downhill. The regulation, if implemented well as rewrote the Authority for the protection of data, will be indigestible to insurance companies. Just think of the possibilities of traceability off at will. In addition, discounts on at the time, are less substantial than expected. Explains why the director of Ania, the association of insurance companies, Vittorio Verdone: "So far we have opted for a fair distribution of the costs of installation with the customer, and in the end it will still gained. Law but now puts them totally at the expense of companies and therefore the discounts are reduced. "


Source: [link to www.repubblica.it]