What if your social media profile affected your credit score

[Anonymous]

I turned down a job in telematics around 4 years ago because I was horrified at what they were proposing to do with the data.

(Telematics generally involves collecting data from the various sensors in a car. You can then send that data over the cellular network and analyze it in near real-time. "Hey put this box in your car and we'll give you a lower insurance rate!")

Every week I read new papers and articles about who is doing what with what new data and it just gets worse and worse and worse.

Some examples...and believe me, it's far worse in data analytics today than I can reasonably show here:

Just skim this paper: Claims Frequency Modeling Using Telematics Car Driving Data

"Based on these numerical examples we recommend the use of these telematics covariates for car insurance pricing. "

Why companies want to mine the secrets in your voice

"Voicesense makes an intriguing promise to its clients: give us someone’s voice, and we’ll tell you what they will do. The Israeli company uses real-time voice analysis during calls to evaluate whether someone is likely to default on a bank loan, buy a more expensive product, or be the best candidate for a job."

The mathematics behind all of it very closely resemble that used in FICO scoring. Weight of evidence/information values/binning (called scorecards here)/machine learning, etc.

[Anonymous]

Going back in time, there was one credit bureau that collected information in addition to credit scores (gossip) and sold the information to lenders. The consumer was NOT permitted access to the information or an opportunity to correct or update the reports. This type of credit/information gathering reporting was at the root of the reformation in the credit world. Granted you add in the Social Media experiences and it greatly opens up the types of things that can be monitored and utilized to determine whatever on a person (scary). The article on China and others is really a "big brother" scenario if there is one. Use cameras on every corner to spy on us!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

We'd be like China.  

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4

George Orwell, revisited.  

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First thing I thought as well. 

[Anonymous]

Social Security wants to use social media to deny claims and I was denied my long term disability insurance by Unum back in 2011 because they went on MySpace and dug up a photo of me dancing at a warehouse party — in 2006 — and used it as material evidence that I was not having panic attacks at present. They also denied benefits when I appealed on the grounds it was an old picture on a profile I haven’t used in awhile because it was the main picture on my profile and I had pictures from 2010 in there. 

Using social media accounts for creating scoring algorithms is disastrous for consumers. Banks will be able to discriminate against anyone who they don’t like and it won’t come out until someone blows the whistle years later what they actually were basing rejection on. 

[gdale6]

A perect article to show why no one should have such accounts. I have zippo.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I try to remain invisible to social media - no facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest or flickr for me.

However, I did sign up with LinkedIn back in 2008 and still maintain that account.  

[Revelate]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

I try to remain invisible to social media - no facebook, twitter, instagram, pniterest or flickr for me.

However, I did sign up with LinkedIn back in 2008 and still maintain that account.  

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I'm pretty much in the same boat, I only picked up social media profiles at basically gunpoint: there was no real way for me to get an apartment near UCI without a facebook account though I've done nothing with it and might as well delete it at this point, and I do have a minimalist LinkedIn which admittedly gets found with some regularity by companies everyone's heard of... which is weird to me as it is REALLY limited to search off of but whatever.

While I'm not really afraid of anything that I do being used against me, I know what we (my active employment at that time) were doing with that data years ago and I really just don't want that level of behavior analyzed by anyone... want to get to know me, come talk to me.

I don't really think my life has been worse as a result TBH.

[Anonymous]

That is really bad justification for denying the insurance especially since 2006 is more than a decade ago and old photos are no indicator of the likelihood of one experiencing panic attacks. It's dangerous when data available online can be interpreted and twisted to benefit their company, not clients.