The data collected from Google smart home and personal devices by either searches, sensors, voice and audio commands or visual cues can be daunting and even downright scary when combined to create
a complete picture of an individual or a home.
Vhomeinsurance.com, a lead-generation service for home insurance companies, offers a list of Google products that lists the types of data each
collects. The chart shows more than eight categories and a dozen Google products creating a network of services.
“The direct correlation smart homes have on home insurance
prompted vHomeInsurance to analyze the legal disclosures of Google to better understand the data collected by Google smart home products and its implications,” according to a post on the
insurance company’s website.
Google’s audio category offers the most devices, such as Nest cameras and speakers. There are 12 products in this category that record audio, and four
products record video footage, while 11 products record ambient light, and six products record the presence and motion of humans and animals. Two products record network information, three record
temperature, and five record humidity levels.
The lead-generating site might offer the data, but the insurance companies Search Marketing Daily spoke with do not discount insurance
premiums based on these products. They only offer discounts for homes that are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a major security company.
The chart that vhomeinsurance.com
created provides a view at a glance of all the types of data Google collects through its home device with the capability to package it into a profile of the user or user’s home, complete with
opt-in notifications and privacy agreements in their terms of service.
In a blog posted last week, Michele Turner, director of product and smart home ecosystem for Google Nest, explained how
Google is providing an update on what they’re doing to create an ecosystem that offers flexibility in the home through a project called The Works with Google Assistant. The idea is to let people
control more than 40,000 devices from more than 5,000 partners.