Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by jolmg on Monday April 29, 2019 @01:22PM (#19780416)

It seems like Zendrive is something you can integrate on your apps. Their target market seems to be companies that have fleets to manage, like Uber or DHL.

From Zendrive's FAQ page[1]:

> How does it work?

> Zendrive measures driver safety using only phone sensors. Integrate the Zendrive SDK into your driver app, and we’ll measure your drivers’ Caution, Control, and Focus while on the road, as well as detect collisions. This is done by measuring a wide variety of safety factors, like speeding, hard brakes, sharp accelerations, phone use, swerving, length of time driving, time of day, and many many more.

> Who’s it for? How are people using this?

> We built Zendrive for any On Demand company with a growing fleet, to help them manage their growth. With in-depth analysis showing any particular driver’s safety, or fleet-wide safety, it gives fleet managers the tools they need to improve their fleet’s driving to ensure safety, reduce risk and liability, and increase savings.

> Since launch we’ve found additional types of companies getting value from Zendrive, from fleet management platform companies, to activity tracking companies and expense tracking companies who use the driving detection in the technology, to hardware companies looking for new safety features.

[1] https://www.zendrive.com/faq/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by blocke on Monday April 29, 2019 @01:25PM (#19780459)

Let's not pretend this is a full list. It's just a list of example apps.

"Hardware companies"

Does that mean bundled by carriers and crappy Android phones? Lovely.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by m463 on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:00PM (#19784474)

the article specifically says Facetime, which is ios

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by jolmg on Monday April 29, 2019 @01:28PM (#19780485)

Well, I doubt they'll reject clients based on the use they intend to give to their product, but I can't really fault them for that. It seems like a legitimate business. Hardly unethical.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by gbrown on Monday April 29, 2019 @02:57PM (#19781471)

Perhaps we could imagine better privacy laws. The fact that something is legal, and a legitimate business, doesn't mean that it's good or should be allowed.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by chrismeller on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @09:37AM (#19787769)

Most (all?) of their examples in the FAQ are related to corporate drivers, not individuals. Something like Uber would be a bit of a gray area since you use your own vehicle, but all the others are more like DHL and FedEx, where you're driving a company-provided vehicle and there should be no expectation of privacy in regards to how you operate that vehicle.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by gbrown on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @09:43AM (#19796896)

Those are the examples given, but that wouldn't explain the huge numbers claimed elsewhere - nearly a quarter of phones in the US. Pardon me for not assuming that a data gathering corporation has my best interests at heart.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by mixmastamyk on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:46PM (#19785001)

Without explicit permission given.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Insurers Know How Often American Drivers Touch Their Phones by dillonmckay on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:43PM (#19784990)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

This was legit, too.

[ Parent | on HN ]