Admiral has been forced to scrap plans to use Facebook posts to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance after the social media company said the scheme breached its privacy rules.

In an embarrassing U-turn, the insurance firm pulled the product less than two hours before it was due to officially launch on Wednesday. The product, called firstcarquote, was launched later with “reduced functionality”: users can log in to the product with Facebook but it will no longer analyse their data.

Facebook said protecting the privacy of its users was of the “utmost importance” and that it had clear guidelines about how information obtained from the site should be used.

Section 3.15 of Facebook’s platform policy states that the site’s data should not be used to “make decisions about eligibility, including whether to approve or reject an application or how much interest to charge on a loan”.



Admiral and Facebook remain in talks about trying to revive the product, with industry insiders arguing about who was to blame for the last-minute climbdown. Facebook is understood to have known about firstcarquote for months and the product has been operational on the internet for weeks in a test form.

Privacy campaigners welcomed Admiral’s reversal but said that it was only the start of other companies trying to use personal data in a similar way.

Simon Morrissey, head of data and privacy at law firm Lewis Silkin, said: “This is the tip of a very large iceberg that consumers and businesses are increasingly going to encounter. The challenge with these sorts of solutions is that users may find it increasingly difficult to avoid opting in as the financial disadvantage in doing so becomes so significant that users have no other option but to hand over access to their data.”

Admiral planned to analyse the Facebook accounts of first-time car drivers or owners to look for personality traits linked to safe driving. These drivers would be offered discounts of up to £350 a year.

Under the scheme, the company would identify personality traits through examining posts and likes by Facebook, although not photos, and looking for certain habits. Facebook users who write in short, concise sentences, use lists, and arrange to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just “tonight”, would be identified as conscientious. In contrast, those who frequently use exclamation marks and phrases such as “always” or “never” rather than “maybe” could be overconfident.

The scheme would be voluntary and not apply price increases to drivers deemed to be more risky.

Firstcarquote has been in testing for months but Facebook insists on a final review of applications that use information from its site and the product fell at this hurdle.

Open Rights Group, the digital rights campaigning organisation, said Admiral’s scheme was “intrusive”.



Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights, said: “We need to think about the wider consequences of allowing companies to make decisions that affect us financially or otherwise, based on what we have said on social media.

“Such intrusive practices could see decisions being made against certain groups based on biases about race, gender, religion or sexuality – or because their posts in some way mark them as unconventional. Ultimately, this could change how people use social media, encouraging self-censorship in anticipation of future decisions.

“Young people may feel pushed into such schemes because of financial constraints. The right to keep things private shouldn’t be the preserve of those who can afford it.”

A Facebook spokesperson said: “Protecting the privacy of the people on Facebook is of utmost importance to us. We have clear guidelines that prevent information obtained from Facebook from being used to make decisions about eligibility.

“We have made sure anyone using this app is protected by our guidelines and that no Facebook user data is used to assess their eligibility. Facebook accounts will only be used for login and verification purposes.

“Our understanding is that Admiral will then ask users who sign up to answer questions which will be used to assess their eligibility.”

Admiral said that young car drivers will still receive a discount for signing up for insurance through firstcarquote. However, this will now be a flat amount across all customers and the company did not disclose how big the discount will be.

An Admiral spokesperson said: “Firstcarquote, which will allow first-time drivers to voluntarily share some social data with insurers for a simple and discounted quote, is currently a beta product.

“Admiral does not have access to customers’ Facebook data and does not hold social media data to set prices for its customers. Following discussions with Facebook the product is launching with reduced functionality, allowing first-time drivers to log in using Facebook and share some information to secure a faster, simpler and discounted quote.”