LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.

Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.

So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.

LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

On a Thursday morning in June for example, the car had been driven 7.33 miles in 18 minutes; there had been two rapid accelerations and two incidents of hard braking.

  • JohnDClay
    12·
    10 months ago

    Is there a way to disable this? Does it report though android auto? Is there a way to prevent those packets sending?

    • rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de
      8·
      10 months ago

      Varies widely. In Toyota’s you call via the SOS button, have your VIN and they can do it. There are also other direct ways like pulling the Mayday fuse to disconnect the “Data Connection Module” (DCM) but that takes the microphone with it.

      Some older vehicles that have 3G radios might not have been disconnected explicitly but are as good as dead because 3G as they knew it is gone.

      It does not report via Android Auto since these vehicles have their own cellular radios, but not to say Google has its own metrics.

      Your best bet is looking for a car/make-specific forum or subreddit and see if anyone’s asked the questions before while ignoring the “nothing to hide, you have a phone lol” clowns.

    • Patches
      61·
      10 months ago

      The car has a cellular connection and whoever manufacturers the car probably pays for it.

      How to disable? Probably not without breaking something else. You could at best block the Connection with Lead foil but you’d have to find where it was. You might lose all Connection though - Bluetooth, FM/AM

      • JohnDClay
        1·
        10 months ago

        If it’s not through android auto, I’m fine just connecting though a hardwired USBC to my phone.