Insurance coverage denied because of Facebook photos(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Insurance coverage denied because of Facebook photos
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/11/creepy-insurance-company-pulls-coverage-due-to-facebook-pics.ars
5 comments
Insurance companies regularly engage private investigators to spy upon and photograph people they suspect of fraud, or whom they just want to find an excuse to stop providing benefits to. Sadly, I don't know how controversial or different this is (putting aside my personal feelings about it). The only real difference here is that an insurance investigator found photos instead of taking them. Either way, the same photos taken by an investigator would have been used the same way.
Sick benefits mean: if you convince a doctor you are too sick to work, you can stop working and the insurance company pays your salary indefinitely instead. As you might imagine, some people try to take a long paid vacation this way using vague subjective illnesses like depression. So insurance companies really do have to defend themselves from fake claims and malingering. I dunno about this case, but in general you can appreciate why they have to try to catch fakers.
The question is about whether a photo depicting someone looking happy or having fun precludes the condition of depression, and is in itself a sufficient basis for terminating benefits.
It is no a part of the known clinical attributes of depression that a person must appear unhappy and detached 100% of the time. In fact, I have not known a single depressed person - including those with severe clinical depression - who exhibit such consistency.
In fact, volatility of mood, including extreme variations, is often a key characteristic of whatever it is that depression is. People who suffer from depression often have no problem participating or "blending in" various social gatherings, events, etc. - it's more that in their private world, they are unable to maintain stable emotional equilibrium.
In any case, this is irrelevant. The point is that a photo of someone with a smile on their face on a social networking site does not meet the evidentiary burden required to make decisions with nontrivial political and legal weight such as denying someone insurance coverage.
It is no a part of the known clinical attributes of depression that a person must appear unhappy and detached 100% of the time. In fact, I have not known a single depressed person - including those with severe clinical depression - who exhibit such consistency.
In fact, volatility of mood, including extreme variations, is often a key characteristic of whatever it is that depression is. People who suffer from depression often have no problem participating or "blending in" various social gatherings, events, etc. - it's more that in their private world, they are unable to maintain stable emotional equilibrium.
In any case, this is irrelevant. The point is that a photo of someone with a smile on their face on a social networking site does not meet the evidentiary burden required to make decisions with nontrivial political and legal weight such as denying someone insurance coverage.
Douglas Adams on the "Internet":
I don’t think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn’t becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it’s very new to us. Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.
I don’t think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn’t becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it’s very new to us. Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day.
"Facebook doesn't allow any accounts created on their servers to be used for commercial purposes (So the existence of all-access corporate accounts would violate their own terms of use). What they do, however, is handle requests for private data individually, and their standard for decision isn't very well defined in the terms of service or privacy policy."
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=21092
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=21092
Now I know how to monetize social sites. Just sell the information to insurance companies! (What's next, deranged exes who were just released from prison?)
Isn't the solution to simply be more conservative with what you post on facebook? we all know that nothing on it is private... If you are looking for a private more secure social networking site, use intronetworks, not facebook...
Posting pictures of yourself is a cry for attention...