In an interview with The Guardian about the opt-in firstcarquote app, project lead Dan Mines described it as “a test”, saying: “We are doing our best to build a product that allows young people to identify themselves as safe drivers… This is innovative, it is the first time anyone has done this.” The algorithms that Admiral had developed for the app apparently aimed to glean personality traits from users’ Facebook posts by analyzing how posts were written — with individuals who scored well for qualities such as conscientiousness and organization more likely to be offered discounts vs those who came across as overconfident/less well organized, as judged by their Facebook postings. Photos were not intended to be used to assess drivers — the analysis was purely based on text updates to Facebook.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/02/uk-car-insurance-firm-wants-to-scan-social-media-posts-to-price-premiums/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=twitter