Vehicles Can Read Minds, The Nextdoor App And Preventing Fraud With A Telematic Box

A new addition and focus of the Private Investigator Advice website will be associated with investigator technology. Technology is advancing every day and it can affect investigators directly and sometimes indirectly.

So with that being said, I will be sharing technology that relates to investigators to help investigator and future investigators with being up to date on technology trends.

Here we go.

Future Nissan Vehicles Can Read a Driver’s Mind

I don’t know that it is really reading a driver’s mind but this technology might lead to that. Nissan revealed it’s “Brain to Vehicle” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) recently. This technology measures brain waves and transmits the information to the steering, acceleration and braking systems that can begin responding to different things before the driver does anything.

This doesn’t mean the vehicle is going to do those things (steer, brake, or accelerate) for the driver without any help. No, the driver still needs to drive but this technology can begin movements up to ½ second faster.

Nissan plans to have a fully autonomous vehicle on the market by 2022 and hopes to use this mind reading technology to sense discomfort of a passenger when in an autonomous vehicle so the vehicle can adjust to passenger’s preferences. They say even fully autonomous vehicles can still be switched into the manual mode for drivers to take full control.

What does this mean for private investigators?

This could potentially make us better drivers when conducting surveillance to follow someone or to avoid accidents.

This future technology could advance to the point where we never drive our vehicles and it would reduce or eventually eliminate vehicle accidents and incidents. And that itself could change the investigation industry or change the focus of our investigations as it relates to insurance investigations.

Here are some more sources for further reading

Bloomberg

Nissan Intelligent Mobility

Nextdoor App affects Private Investigators During Surveillance

The Nextdoor app is essentially is a neighborhood watch on steroids. The app has many functions but the main one is to alert neighbors of riff-raff in their area. To read more about the Nextdoor app and hear the podcast that specifically was made about this app click the link below.

Nextdoor App Review by a Private Investigator

Insurance Fraud Suspected (and proven) Using Telematics

Insurance fraud was determined by the use of a Telematic Box as reported by the Telegraph. I don’t want to focus on the fraud as much as the Telematic Box itself. I will get into how this helps an insurance company determine fraud in a moment. Before that let me briefly discuss what this insurance company is doing.

A company called Insurethebox insures vehicles and places a small device on the insured’s vehicle. By putting one of these devices on a vehicle they can track and determine the following:

The time of day or night someone drives
The speed someone drives on different type of roads
If someone brakes or accelerates quickly
If a driver takes breaks on long trips
How many miles are being driven
Find stolen vehicles
Alert the insurance company if there is an accident

The device enables the insurance company to see your driving habits and be able to give you a quote on insurance not just based on not having a claim (No Claim Discount) but on your driving habits as well.

How does this technology affect fraud?

In the case reported by the Telegraph, an accident was claimed by two individuals totaling £90,000. The box which was installed on one of the vehicles by Insurethebox suggested that the alleged accident was fraudulent.

The crash data recorded by the telematics box on one of the vehicles did not match the damage associated with the accident.

The driver of the vehicle eventually came clean and admitted he had lied about the accident and stated that the passenger in his vehicle convinced him to run into BMW. The judge in the court case also determined that both drivers in the accident knew each other and in my experience, that is a serious red flag.

So What Does This Type of Technology Mean for Investigators?

Clearly, this insurance company is investing in the prevention of fraud by attaching these “Black Boxes” to their insured’s vehicle. While they may be selling to potential customers that this device will help possibly lower the cost of insurance for their insured, I think the boxes were really designed for determining fraud.

I can potentially see this type of thing being in all vehicles someday (even though I would never want that).

But hey that is just my opinion.

Here is the website to Insurethebox.

Here is a link to the article regarding the fraud case.

If you know of some technology that might be related to investigators message me through the contact page and I will be sure to check it out and share it with the community.

Andrew