The state of Texas brought a lawsuit against the insurance company Allstate in which they accused the company of tracking drivers illegally. In the claims of the case, the state says that Allstate tracked drivers via their phones using an organization known as Arity. Arity claims to have the “world’s largest driving behavior database.” The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, said that the insurance company, along with Arity, paid mobile apps “millions of dollars to install Allstate’s tracking software,” into their programming. With this, he says millions of Americans had their data sold without their knowledge or consent.
Allstate has already released a statement denying these claims.
In their statement, Allstate also defended Arity. They said that the corporation helps people get accurate and up to date auto insurance quotes. They also said that when people sign up with Arity, they give their consent to their data collection very simply and clearly. Allstate assures that all measures taken by them and Arity are well within the laws of data collection and use.
These allegations come after other apps have come under fire for data collection.
Last year, apps such as Life360 and GasBuddy were in the hot seat after the New York Times reported that they collected data on their users and sold that data to Arity. It was also revealed at that time that Arity was founded under Allstate as a subsidiary for data collection on drivers. From the data bought from apps like Life360 and GasBuddy, Arity was able to determine how often individuals sped, braked hard, and even when they were driving distractedly on their phones. They then were assigned driving risk scores, which in turn were viewable to Allstate. Allstate’s premiums increased as a result of the driving data analysis done by Arity.
In the lawsuit, Texas claims Arity and Allstate have the driving data of over 45 million people.
Texas continues to hold strong to their argument that users were unaware of any of this data analytics that has been happening behind the scenes in most of their apps. Despite Allstate’s denial, Attorney General Paxton continues to be outspoken on the lack of consent on the users part, therefore making any collection of data illegal.
Last year, the state of Texas brought a similar case against an auto maker when they sued General Motors. The lawsuit was for similar issues, claiming the company collected consumer’s data and sold it to insurance companies.