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back to article Oz insurer offers Basis breathing-bangle-for-your-data swap

An Australian insurance company has jumped on the fitness-tracker bandwagon, and is going to give away Intel Basis walk-snitches to anyone who wants a discount for populating its databases. It's probably a handy fillip for Intel, which bought Basis Science last year in a bid to create a presence in the wearables market. So far …

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  1. frank ly

    Possibilities

    What would happen if you fastened this thing to your dog's leg? I'm assuming you have (or have access to) an active outdoors type of dog.

    0 0 Reply
    1. MrDamage Silver badge
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      Re: Possibilities

      No dog required.

      Just pop down to your local chinatown and buy one of those "lucky cats" with the swinging arm

      2 0 Reply
      1. Steven Roper
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        Re: Possibilities

        Until the buggers build in IR scanning and DNA sampling to verify that a real live human is attached to the thing.

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        1. Swarthy
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          Childcatcher

          Re: Possibilities

          Until the buggers build in IR scanning and DNA sampling to verify that a real live human is attached to the thing.
          ...Toddlers!

          0 0 Reply
    2. Medixstiff
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      Re: Possibilities

      When i first got my Fitbit, the funniest post on their forum was from someone advising that watching adult sites helped him get his steps taken up to the 8,000 mark very quickly.

      0 0 Reply
  2. dan1980

    I am jut waiting for the day when insurance - be it health or car - is tied to active tracking of every available metric and costs are decided on those.

    What will happen is that those who refuse to be tracked will automatically be put in the highest risk (and therefore highest premium) bracket regardless.

    The road to hell is being built right now, but it certainly isn't being done with good intentions.

    The only way to stop that outcome is for the overwhelming majority of customers to reject this. But, as we know, the average person just doesn't care about their privacy as much as they should and will happily wear a tracking device to get a 5% discount on their insurance. Hell, most people would do it just to get the occasional 'free offer' and entry into competitions.

    1 0 Reply

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