Google is looking at providing information services to employers to help them control their healthcare costs.<\/p>\n
To put that into English, Google will collect enormous amounts of data about its clients employees in order flag people who are engaging in “Unhealthy Lifestyles” and mitigate employer exposure to healthcare costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Basically, they will spy on employees, and provide information that employers can use to meddle in their employees eat, when they sleep, etc.<\/p>\n And, though Google (Alphabet) will deny it, employers will use this data to fire employees who are flagged as healthcare cost risks.<\/p>\n If you want a picture of the Google’s future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face\u2014 forever:*<\/sup><\/p>\n Without much fanfare, Verily, Alphabet\u2019s life sciences unit, has launched Coefficient Insurance<\/a>. It was only a matter of time before Google\u2019s parent got into the health insurance business \u2014 in fact, one wonders what took it so long. With Google\u2019s intimate knowledge of our daily patterns, contacts and dreams, the search engine group has for years had a far better picture of risk<\/a> than any insurer. <\/p>\n That Coefficient Insurance, which is also backed by Swiss Re, would initially focus on the relatively arcane area of stop-loss insurance to protect employers from staff health cost volatility should not obscure its ambitious agenda for the rest of the industry. Thus, according to Verily\u2019s senior management, it might soon start monitoring at-risk employees <\/a>via their smartphones and even coaching them towards healthier lifestyles.<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n As with many services out of Silicon Valley, there is not much reflection about the probable reconfigurations of power among social groups \u2014 the sick and the healthy, the insured and the uninsured, the employers and the employees \u2014 that are likely to occur once the digital dust settles.<\/p>\n One would need to be extremely naive to believe that a more extensive digital surveillance system \u2014 in the workplace and, with Alphabet running the show, now also at home, in the car and wherever your smartphone takes you \u2014 is likely to benefit the weak and the destitute. Some good might come out of it \u2014 a healthier workplace, maybe \u2014 but we should also inquire who would bear the cost of this digital utopia. <\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n Privacy law does not offer an adequate solution either. Under pressure from employers, most workers acquiesce to being monitored. This was obvious even before Alphabet\u2019s foray into insurance, as plenty of smaller players have been pitching employers sophisticated workplace surveillance systems<\/a> as a way of lowering healthcare costs. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If this does not scare the hell out of you, you have not been paying attention.<\/p>\n *<\/sup>Apologies to George Orwell.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Google is looking at providing information services to employers to help them control their healthcare costs. To put that into English, Google will collect enormous amounts of data about its clients employees in order flag people who are engaging in “Unhealthy Lifestyles” and mitigate employer exposure to healthcare costs. Basically, they will spy on employees, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,364,463,462,366,460,533],"class_list":["post-176119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-evil","tag-healthcare","tag-insurance","tag-privacy","tag-public-health","tag-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}