PerspectiveInsurance Black Boxes and the Surveillance State – How Free Are You, Really?

Published 30 July 2019

Over the last few years there’s been a noticeable rise in the number of drivers opting to fit a “black box” to their cars in order to obtain cheaper insurance. The idea is that the boxes send location data to nearby satellites, allowing insurance companies to monitor how people are driving, offering discounts and even refunds to those deemed to be driving more safely. Certainly, the driver wouldn’t know any different, as they’d still drive with the same acute awareness of the rules of the road.

Over the last few years there’s been a noticeable rise in the number of drivers opting to fit a “black box” to their cars in order to obtain cheaper insurance. According to some recent reports, these black boxes could save drivers as much as £300 a year.

The idea is that the boxes send location data to nearby satellites, allowing insurance companies to monitor how people are driving, offering discounts and even refunds to those deemed to be driving more safely. As a result, black box drivers tend to drive quite cautiously, avoiding fast acceleration and never exceeding the speed limit, wherever they happen to be.

Mike Ryder writes in The Conversation that what’s most fascinating about the black box is that logically speaking, the black box doesn’t even need to contain any electrical gadgetry at all.

Certainly, the driver wouldn’t know any different, as they’d still drive with the same acute awareness of the rules of the road. Of course, this would mean the insurance companies wouldn’t receive any telemetric data, but then, what are they using the data for, if not to compel “safe” driving?