Your Driving, Tracked

You know you have a credit score. Did you know that you might also have a driving score?

Driving scores are based on how often you slam on the brakes, speed, look at your phone or drive late at night — information that, likely without your knowing, can be collected by your car or by apps on your smartphone. That data is sold to brokers, who work with auto insurers.

These scores can help determine how much drivers pay for insurance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: Experts say that basing premiums on how we actually drive — rather than on our credit scores and whether we’re married or went to college — could be a fairer system, and ultimately improve road safety.

But this tracking will only lead to safer driving if people know that it is happening.

How it happens

The smartphone apps collecting driver data might not be obvious at first glance. One, Life360, is popular with parents who want to keep track of their families. MyRadar offers weather forecasts. GasBuddy can help you find cheap fuel on a road trip.

But all of these apps also have opt-in driving analysis features that offer insights into things like safety and fuel usage. Those insights are provided by Arity, a data broker founded by Allstate.

Arity uses the data to create driving scores for tens of millions of people, and then markets the scores to auto insurance companies.

“No one who realizes what they’re doing would consent,” said Kathleen Lomax, a New Jersey mother who recently canceled her subscription to Life360 when she found out this was happening.