This reminds me of a banking software company I used to work at. One of their products was assessing risk for loans, too many purchases for fast food or restaurant categories on your bank statement could cause you to not get a loan.

I could see insurance companies purchasing your rewards accounts from data brokers to see what your habits are.

That’s a fascinating thought.

Our digital footprints are becoming more telling of our real lives, as more of our lives are mirrored digitally.

And in many ways that’s great - not only is booking a flight easier but my eating habits when combined with millions of others can reveal what epidemiology of yesteryear could only dream of

But I think this is where the privacy debate falls down - privacy is not real (secrecy is real, privacy is the politeness of our neighbours). What is concerning is what do others do with our information - and I think the best answer is the medical ethics answer - nothing unless it is in the individual’s best interests.

Yes there is a lot of wriggle room in those words but still

This is why we need real ownership and control of data about ourselves. It should be totally unacceptable for a bank to pull what OP described. Banks and loan underwriters should not have access to this kind of data about us in the first place, let alone use it to discriminate for/against people. Insurance companies should not have access to this kind of data either. We should be able to control access to these data and companies should not be allowed to discriminate based on whether or not they can obtain consent to access it.

This is a legal problem and not at all a technical one.

It can be achieved today with current tech under the right legal framework, and it will never be achieved regardless of what tech exists without that legal framework.

As the OP I think I agree with you - the privacy problem (and the surveillance opportunity) is a legal problem - the right framework we get enormous benefits, evenly distributed and minimised downsides. The wrong framework and the benefits are concentrated in the wealthiest and the rest of us get the predatory downsides.

> what do others do with our information - and I think the best answer is the medical ethics answer - nothing unless it is in the individual’s best interests.

How is saving money not in an individual’s best interest?

You have person A who chooses to consume known carcinogens and excess carbohydrate, and person B who abstains from them and exercises control for their diet.

Why is it ethical for person B to have to subsidize person A?

Similarly, person A chooses to spend more money on less nutritious fast food meals, and person B makes quinoa salad at home and takes it to work. A lender may conclude person B exhibits behavior that indicates they have a lower probability of default, so why should person B have to subsidize person A’s lifestyle?

If the counter argument is that person A is poorer, had poorer parents, had a worse upbringing in a worse neighborhood with worse influences, then the correct way to subsidize person A is via government spending (cash, education, raising the floor on pay to quality of life at work ratios).

In plenty of countries, there is already a tax system to punish "bad consuming choices": e.g. tobacco, alcohol, and in some places even products with excess sugar are taxed more than other products. In Europe, we call it "soda tax" or something. If you want to get academish, you can call it a Pigouvian tax.

I think it's perfectly OK. Peeping on someones digital data is not OK.

None of us are perfect.

But we have this perfect expectation of how we should and could be in our heads - thinner, fitter, more sensible with money, happier with friends. But we all fail. We just tend to fail in different ways.

Some of us are luckier, their satiety levels are lower, their kidney disease markers are low, no bowel cancer, no mental illness.

Those people won’t need high insurance premiums. But the point of insurance is not to reward the lucky ones, the whole point of insurance is that the lucky ones do subsidise the unlucky.

And please do not think “that person pays into a well researched health plan because they are more intelligent,more handsome, more like me”

If paying into a good health plan is important then simply make everyone do it.

The term is social insurance.

After staring at it for a while it’s the only thing that makes sense.

And then you can use that social pressure for useful things

The whole premise of insurance is that a large group shoulders the burden of the few that need to use the insurance. If outcomes can be predicted this whole concept goes away. People would apply for insurance and if they were not denied they'd know they don't need insurance and drop it. Everyone else would be denied or priced out of the market, and that would be the end of the insurance business and nobody would be insured.

Perhaps the blood tests will/already do include this analysis. Asking people about their behaviours/habits/diets is usually a very poor data source. Not only do people have poor memories, but they are motivated to recall only positive behaviours, etc.

Many studies on health interventions (diet, exercise, sleep) have had to handle these problems and usually have to resort to much more controlled studies to demonstrate the effect beyond the "very large numbers, very long time" post-hoc analyses.

In this specific case, I doubt a significant number of people would have any idea what would be "positive" in the context of risk related to phthalates...

What questions are you expecting them to ask? "Do you eat chipotle"? "Are you alive"?

This data would only be useful if it was accurate and predictive. I dont see it getting there on either front.

Yeah, microplastics seem to be systemic. I don't know that we actually have good data on this, but many sources claim that most microplastics are from polyester (a plastic) clothing and industrial nylon fishing nets. If true then wearing and washing a tacky shirt could be more hazardous that drinking from tons of plastic bottles and that would make such questions hard to ask in a predictive manner.

That doesnt say anything about accuracy or predicative power.

Those prior ones are binary lifestyle classifications whereas your exposure to microplastics is ubiquitous and the results are probably dose-dependent.

I personally use stainless lunchware and cotton clothing but if we’re to run an analysis of variance on my ingestion the effect is likely nil compared to walking on office carpet or drinking from aluminum cans or brushing my teeth.

Like refinery operators and gas station workers are exposed to benzene at different levels. But what about people who buy or lease new cars every two years.

There’s too much noise vs signal for insidious risks like these not well understood factors.