NATIONAL — Apps on your phone may be tracking you in ways you didn’t think you signed up for.
It could even cause the price of your car insurance to increase.
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As reported on News Center 7 Daybreak, some of these apps have nothing to do with insurance or evening driving.
“The quotes I was getting just didn’t make sense to me,” said Larry Johnson.
News Center 7 Consumer Reporter Xavier Hershovitz said that with a rising credit score and no accidents, Johnson went shopping for new car insurance.
“He told me that I had a low insurance score, and I didn’t know what that meant,” he said.
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For six years, Johnson and his family have been big fans of the Life360 app.
“My whole family uses it. We have kids who are driving that go to school, so we want to keep up where everybody is,” said Johnson.
Hershovitz says he has now learned that the app was keeping track of something else, his family’s driving.
“It’s shocking. And it feels, you know, like a violation almost. I mean, I don’t mind signing up for something. I know what I’m getting myself into,” said Johnson.
A lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that a data broker called Arity embedded tracking technology in popular apps. This includes Life360 and GasBuddy without telling consumers what was happening.
The lawsuit states, “When a consumer downloaded the third-party app onto their phone, they also unwittingly downloaded Defendants’ software...Defendants could monitor the consumer’s location and movement in real-time.”
“We have no way of knowing how this is going to be used against us,” said online privacy expert Sarah Geoghegan. “You’re opting into an app that is supposed to be about family safety. You don’t understand that that means through many, like down the ecosystem, down the data chain, that that actually is your car insurance company.”
Hershovitz says that while people have not likely heard of Arity, they have heard of its owner, Allstate Insurance.
Allstate doesn’t just use the data itself but sells it to other insurance companies.
“You’re getting similar quotes from similar insurance companies because they’re pulling from the database,” said Johnson.
Hershovitz reports that Tina Marie Johnson opted into the safe driving app through her insurer until she saw it in action.
“Last year, alone, my rates went up three times. And I have no accidents, no speeding tickets, no nothing,” said Johnson.
She said the app regularly dings her for unsafe driving for her car’s automatic braking, a safety feature she can’t control.
When she rode a handicapped scooter inside a grocery store, the app thought she was driving erratically on the road.
“It was reading me drive. And I’m like, wait a minute. What’s going on here?” Johnson said.
When our sister station, WSB-TV in Atlanta, contacted Arity, they pointed them to an exhibit in their legal filing in the Texas lawsuit.
It showed that consumers allowed location data and motion data to be shared when they signed up for Life360.
“It’s saying they’re sharing your information, but it’s not really telling you that the information that they share is going to affect you down the line and cost you more money,” said Larry Johnson.
In its legal response to the Texas lawsuit, Arity claimed, “The Arity Companies are separate and distinct legal entities from The Allstate Corporation and its insurance company affiliates.”
But when WSB contacted Arity for a comment, an Allstate representative with an Allstate email address said the following:
“Consumers who choose to share driving data through Arity-powered apps can access emergency assistance, track fuel efficiency, and unlock personalized insurance rates after a clear notice and explicit opt-in process.”
Larry Johnson did not just delete Life360, but plenty of other apps on his phone, too.
“I look for location, I look for tracking data, and I look to see what they do with that data and if I can opt out or not. And if I can’t, then I don’t use the app,” he stated.
Privacy experts say the current law does not do enough.
U.S. Senators from Georgia and Louisiana introduced a bill called “The Delete Act.”
It would allow consumers to request data brokers delete this information and even allow you to not join a “Do not track” list.
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