Patent Issued for Selectively shared vehicle-based telematics (USPTO 11615478): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 APR 14 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11615478, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Chintakindi, Sunil (Menlo Park, CA, US), Hayes, Howard (Glencoe, IL, US).

This patent was filed on February 19, 2021 and was published online on March 28, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Vehicle telematics data may be valuable for a number of purposes. Such vehicle telematics data includes data from measurements related to a vehicle’s operation. For example, vehicle telematics data may include global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of a vehicle that allow the location of the vehicle to be tracked. Also, for example, vehicle telematics data may include acceleration data of a vehicle that allow the speed of the vehicle to be tracked. Vehicle telematics data may include other vehicle operational data as well. Auto-insurance providers are interested in this information so as to better evaluate the risk associated with customers and potential customers. Other organizations may also be interested in such information to determine a person’s behavior (e.g., driving behavior, risk tolerance, or the like). Moreover, parents or other guardians may also be interested in monitoring a vehicle carrying their children or other dependents. Users may elect to have driving information captured and/or shared with one or more entities, but this may result in a perceived lack of privacy.

“As technology advances and adoption of such technology increases, more and more vehicle telematics data may be collected (e.g., with permission of the user) and more and more people or entities may desire access to this data. Many individuals, however, may find the rise as such technology results in a lack of privacy. As such, challenges for making vehicle telematics data accessible while still maintaining individuals’ privacy may emerge. As more vehicle telematics data becomes available, it becomes more difficult to strike a balance between offering a sense of privacy to users, while still providing information when needed or relevant. On one hand, reporting all information may cause people to find such vehicle telematics systems intrusive, and may therefore completely opt out of programs for monitoring vehicle behavior. On the other hand, reporting too little information may limit the value of such information to third parties. Accordingly, new systems, devices, methodologies, and the like are desired to collect vehicle telematics data and maintain the privacy of such data.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure address one or more of the issues mentioned above by disclosing methods, computer-readable storage media, software, systems, and apparatuses for collecting and analyzing vehicle telematics data (e.g., with user permission), but only selectively sharing such telematics with third parties upon meeting certain thresholds or requirements. In particular, based on collected telematics data indicating that a safe driving threshold has been met, such telematics data may then be selectively shared with third parties. Accordingly, such telematics data collection and analysis may be performed locally prior to sharing any telematics data with remote, third parties.

“Advantageous solutions to the problems presented above, and other issues which will be apparent upon the reading of the present disclosure, may be to provide an apparatus that includes a telematics system configured to collect telematics data associated with operation of a vehicle, a communication interface, one or more processors, and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to activate the telematics system to collect telematics data associated with operation of the vehicle during a first window of time, analyze the telematics data to identify one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle, determine whether the one or more parameters meets a safe driving threshold, and upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold, transmit, via the communication interface, the telematics data to a remote computing device associated with a third party.

“In some aspects, the memory may further store instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to display, on a display of the apparatus, a sharing prompt indicating that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold. Transmitting the telematics data to the remote computing device may then include receiving a user interaction with the sharing prompt indicating a confirmation to share the telematics data with the third party. In some examples, activating the telematics system may include receiving a notification that a driver associated with the vehicle has enrolled in a safe driver program with the third party. The safe driver program may include an indication that the telematics data will not be transmitted to the third party until the safe driving threshold is met. In some examples, the third party may be an insurance entity, the safe driving threshold may be associated with a discounted insurance premium. In such examples, the memory may further store instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to display, on a display of the apparatus, a discount notification indicating that the discounted insurance premium is available to an insurance policy holder of the vehicle, upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold.

“In some embodiments, the apparatus may be located within, integrated with, or mounted to the vehicle. The telematics system may include a Global Positioning System (GPS), and the telematics data may then include geo-location data and the one or more parameters may include a geographic zone of preferred driving. In such examples, the memory may further store instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to determine whether the geo-location data is indicative of the vehicle staying within the geographic zone of preferred driving.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An apparatus comprising: a telematics system configured to collect telematics data associated with operation of a vehicle; a communication interface; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to: receive an indication of a positive ignition event from a vehicle control computer associated with the vehicle; activate, responsive to the positive ignition event, the telematics system to collect telematics data associated with operation of the vehicle during a window of time, the telematics data including first Global Positioning System (GPS) origin-destination data representing a location of the telematics system; identify, based on the telematics data, one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle, the one or more parameters including second GPS origin-destination data, stored at the memory, representing a pattern of commutes; determine a comparison of the first GPS origin-destination data to the second GPS origin-destination data; determine, using the comparison, whether the one or more parameters meets a safe driving threshold; display, on a display of the apparatus, a sharing prompt indicating that the one or more parameters meet the safe driving threshold; receive a user interaction with the sharing prompt, the user interaction indicating a confirmation to share the telematics data with a third-party; and upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold and responsive to receiving the user interaction indicating the confirmation to share the telematics data with the third-party, transmit, via the communication interface, the telematics data to a remote computing device associated with the third-party.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein activating the telematics system includes receiving a notification that a driver associated with the vehicle has enrolled in a safe driver program with the third-party, wherein the safe driver program includes an indication that the telematics data will not be transmitted to the third-party until the safe driving threshold is met.

“3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the safe driving threshold is associated with a discounted insurance premium, wherein the third-party is an insurance entity, and wherein the memory further stores instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to: upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold, display, on a display of the apparatus, a discount notification indicating that the discounted insurance premium is available to an insurance policy holder of the vehicle.

“4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is located within, integrated with, or mounted to the vehicle.

“5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the telematics system includes a GPS device to generate the first GPS origin-destination data.

“6. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a display, wherein a portion of the display provides a first graphic indicating that data is not being shared with the third-party, and a second graphic indicating that data is being shared with the third-party.

“7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters associated with the operation of the vehicle include at least one of: destination information corresponding to a trip, a time range of the trip, velocity events that occurred during the trip, or braking events that occurred during the trip.

“8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein analyzing the telematics data to identify one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle includes calculating a driving behavior score during the window of time.

“9. A method comprising: receiving an indication of a positive ignition event from a vehicle control computer associated with a vehicle; activating a telematics system to collect telematics data associated with operation of the vehicle during a window of time responsive to receiving the indication of the positive ignition event; receiving, by a computing device associated with the vehicle, telematics data from the telematics system during the window of time; identifying, by the computing device and based on the telematics data, one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle, the one or more parameters including first Global Positioning System (GPS) origin-destination data; determining, by the computing device, whether the one or more parameters meets a safe driving threshold by comparing the first GPS origin-destination data to second GPS origin-destination data indicating a historical driving pattern, wherein the safe driving threshold is associated with a discounted insurance premium for a driver of the vehicle; displaying, on a display of the computing device, a sharing prompt indicating that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold; and receiving, at the computing device, a user interaction with the sharing prompt indicating a confirmation to share the telematics data with an insurance entity; and upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold and responsive to the user interaction indicating the confirmation to share the telematics data with the insurance entity, transmitting the telematics data to a remote server to cause a driving behavior-based insurance premium value associated with the vehicle to increase or decrease.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein activating the telematics system includes receiving a notification that a driver associated with the vehicle has enrolled in a safe driver program with the insurance entity, wherein the safe driver program includes an indication that the telematics data will not be transmitted to the insurance entity until the safe driving threshold is met.

“11. The method of claim 9, further comprising: upon determining that the one or more parameters meets the safe driving threshold, displaying, on a display of the computing device, a discount prompt indicating that the discounted insurance premium is available to an insurance policy holder of the vehicle.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein identifying the one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle includes calculating a driving behavior score during the window of time.

“13. The method of claim 9, further comprising: pairing the computing device with the vehicle control computer associated with the vehicle.

“14. A system comprising: a telematics system configured to collect telematics data during operation of a vehicle; and a first computing device associated with the vehicle, wherein the first computing device comprises: a wireless communication interface; a processor; and a memory device storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the first computing device to: receive an indication of a positive ignition event from a computer associated with the vehicle; receive, responsive to the positive ignition event, telematics data from the telematics system during a window of time the telematics data including global positioning system (GPS) origin-destination data; identify, based on the telematics data, one or more parameters associated with operation of the vehicle, the one or more parameters being determined from the GPS origin-destination data and including at least one of a braking value representing an amount of braking events or an acceleration value representing an amount of acceleration events; determine whether the braking value or the acceleration value is above or below a predetermined threshold value stored in the memory device; display, on a display of the first computing device, a sharing prompt indicating that the braking value or the acceleration value is above, or below the predetermined threshold value; receive a user interaction with the sharing prompt, the user interaction indicating a confirmation to share the telematics data with a third-party entity; and upon determining that the braking value or the acceleration value is above or below the predetermined threshold value and responsive to receiving the user interaction indicating the confirmation to share the telematics data with the third-party entity, sending, to a second computing device in signal communication with the first computing device, an indication of the braking value or the acceleration value to cause a change to an insurance premium value stored by the second computing device.

“15. The system of claim 14, wherein the telematics system includes a Global Positioning System (GPS), wherein the one or more parameters includes a geographic zone of preferred driving, and wherein the memory device of the first computing device further stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the first computing device to: determine whether the telematics data is indicative of the vehicle staying within the geographic zone of preferred driving.

“16. The system of claim 14, wherein the telematics system includes a biometric device configured to collect biometric data associated with an operator of the vehicle, and wherein the one or more parameters includes biometric data associated with an operator of the vehicle.

“17. The system of claim 14, wherein the telematics system includes one or more sensors configured to collect data associated with movement of the vehicle, and wherein the one or more parameters includes at least one of: destination information corresponding to a trip, a time range of the trip, velocity events that occurred during the trip, or braking events that occurred during the trip.

“18. The system of claim 14, wherein analyzing the one or more parameters includes calculating a driving behavior score associated with the telematics data during the window of time.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Chintakindi, Sunil. Selectively shared vehicle-based telematics. U.S. Patent Number 11615478, filed February 19, 2021, and published online on March 28, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11615478)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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