In a world of a free insurance market where insurers can charge your how much they want based on your risk profile, trying to show proof that you are indeed a safe driver is not something easy to do. Yes, there are players which offer you an OBD2 dongle to track your driving behaviour but BMW has decided that they want to be in that market as well.
Introducing the BMW CarData. What BMW hopes to do with that is to offer additional benefits to customers in markets where they can save on insurance premiums based on mileage travelled. On top of that, customers can also enjoy faster service appointments by sending the data to BMW in order to prepare the parts required. BMW also hopes that CarData will mean more individualised services. All you need is a built-in SIM card slow to use BMW CarData. According to BMW, 8.5 million cars actually meet this requirement at the moment.
“BMW CarData will take the connectivity of our vehicles to a new dimension. Our BMW ConnectedDrive customers will be able to take advantage of new, innovative and customised third-party services in a quick and easy manner. Protecting vehicle data is part of our understanding of premium in the highly-connected vehicle. This is what customers expect from us. In this way, we are allowing customers to decide what happens with their data. This is precisely the philosophy behind BMW CarData.”
BMW has security at the top of their mind as well. All information and data transmitted from the car will be in an encrypted format to BMW secure servers. The data can only be shared with other parties or service providers with the consent of the customers as well.
Peter Schwarzenbauer: “For customers, CarData means security, transparency and control over data from your own car, combined with the many benefits of customised services.”
The BMW Group is the first automotive company to introduce this service, which already conforms to the EU General Data Protection Regulation planned for 2018. The highest level of transparency is guaranteed and customers can request a CarData report of the data released or a CarData archive via the ConnectedDrive portal at any time. The archive contains a detailed list of the telematics data stored in connection with the vehicle and a glossary explaining key terms.
Service providers, such as garages, insurance companies and fleet managers, can register with BMW CarData. If customers want to use a specific service and actively consent to the release of their telematics data, the requesting companies receive the data they need for the service in encrypted form via BMW’s secure backend. This information provides the basis for customised, data-based and innovative service options – from infotainment to smart home functionality – enabling a broad range of value-added services for customers. BMW CarData will be launched in Germany and then gradually rolled out in other markets.
