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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Political parties buying your browsing/buying habits to hit you up with political ads. Police buying your location data to see whether your were near a crime. Insurance companies will soon be buying data about your exercise routines so they can adjust your rates accordingly.

And then there are the really creepy services. There was a service not long ago in Russia that would allow you to upload a picture of any woman you saw on the street. They would identify the face (via VK) and provide you with their contact and job information. Totally creepy. Totally abusive. But easily done with basic tech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FindFace

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> There was a service not long ago in Russia that would allow you to upload a picture of any woman you saw on the street. They would identify the face (via VK) and provide you with their contact and job information

Seems like gender technically wouldnt be a blocker, was that a product choice, or a marketing choice?

The wiki doesn't say anything gender-specific, so I'm guessing that this is just the casual inevitability of any new tech than an official spin. Some will use it to enable harassment, and women are proportionately targets of harassment.

> Insurance companies will soon be buying data about your exercise routines so they can adjust your rates accordingly.

if this results in lower insurance for those who are deemed to be healthier due to exercises, then it's a good outcome. Pricing insurance more accurately is almost always a good outcome.

…Except, of course, for those who can no longer get insured.

And those deemed at risk are not only people skipping jogging.

Unless you ride a bike, which dramatically increases your risk of physical injury in crashes. For a younger person, that makes you more risky.

I suspect there are many activities that correlate to higher risk and many people would not like their insurance to come with a page of fine print of exclusions/fee adders associated with those activities even if it theoretically is more equitable.

As you say, while there's probably some correlation between cycling and healthy activity in general, it's probably also an activity--depending on local infrastructure and where you cycle--that by itself adds risk of injury.

Insurance is about managing average risk for a population. The ones who end up not needing it necessarily paid more than they would have to, _in hindsight_.

Varying the premiums across the insured population adds some fairness to the equation, but the moment it starts actually culling members of said population through outrageous pricing, it is just plain cheating.

All insurance specialises in certain groups. Regular holiday insurance is cheaper than snowboarding holiday insurance (and regular holiday insurance doesn't cover snowboarding). Why would this be different?

Because at some point insurance becomes a societal necessity and you need it to include everybody.

That's the same as saying someone who's poor and low risk can't snowboard, because their premiums have gone up due to a richer high-risk snowboarder you're forced to sell subsidized insurance to.

No, it's saying someone who's poor should be allowed to snowboard just as much as someone rich, and currently they can't and that's a problem. You are advocating for poor people to not be allowed to snowboard, and if they do snowboard, for them to no longer be allowed to drive.

Because if you don't get snowboarding holiday insurance then you shouldn't be snowboarding but you can do anything else while you're on holiday.

Meanwhile in the US if you get kicked off your medical insurance with any kind of chronic illness then you either pay out the ass for basic treatment or die.

"Insurance companies can price in risk" implies "people with chronic illnesses get kicked off their insurance" seems a massive non sequitur.

but you dont seem to care if house and contents insurance doesn't insure people whose house is currently burning.

The problem with medical insurance is that it's a flawed system in the US. Everybody gets sick, it's a near 100% chance guarantee, esp. as you age.

Therefore, medical "insurance" should not be insurance, but should be a fund. It should be paid into by all taxpayers at some rate proportional to their income (like VAT), and then the fund goes to fund _all_ non-elective medical procedures.

Insurance for medical should be for _premium_ facilities, like private rooms, private nurses etc. Not for the treatment.

> but you dont seem to care if house and contents insurance doesn't insure people whose house is currently burning.

That is the case. If your house is currently on fire, no one will insure you. What are you doing about this awful situation?

> Therefore, medical "insurance" should not be insurance, but should be a fund. It should be paid into by all taxpayers at some rate proportional to their income (like VAT), and then the fund goes to fund _all_ non-elective medical procedures.

You seem to be extremely US-centric. You can't differentiate between "how the US does insurance" and "fundamental truths about insurance". This discussion is not just a proxy for an incredibly well-worn, and separate, conversation on US healthcare.

Because if we nickel and dime people for ever decision we risk becoming a society adverse to risk. The safest holiday is the holiday not taken. The safest visit to a national park is the visit done online. If we want people to actually do things, participate in the economy and culture at large, we should not attach a usage tax for every little activity beyond sitting at home all day.

I wasn't suggesting we should.

> if this results in lower insurance for those who are deemed to be healthier due to exercises, then it's a good outcome.

in reality, it'll result in higher insurance for those who are deemed unhealthy, or simply at risk. As someone said already, maybe joggers suddenly get lower premiums and bikers (especially in biker unfriendly cities) get higher ones. Maybe you end up paying even more if you bench more at a gym than the "recommended amount". Maybe they collaborate with certain fitness companies and will charge you less if you click an affiliate link to buy this health product.

The possibilities here are endless, and this is just for one aspect of life. This can in theory work with a benevolent leadership, but that ship sailed decades ago.

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