I already have a little device in my car that let's my auto insurance company spy on me in exchange for a discount. They call it a "Drive Safe and Save Beacon". After asking a lot of questions I have come to believe that it is an accelerometer and a bluetooth radio that sends data to my phone and either the accelerometer data is processed on my phone or it is transmitted via the internet somewhere else where it is processed. I'm not sure which one it is. The insurance company consumes location data too, but they get that from my phone, but there might also be a GPS chip in the "beacon". Probably not though. There's no easy way to take the beacon apart to replace the battery so I would think they wouldn't put unnecessary components in there to draw power. It actually makes me wonder why they need the "beacon" at all because my phone already has an accelerometer, location data and an internet connection. It must be some kind of regulatory requirement. Either that or the people selling the "beacons" to the insurance company are really good at selling redundant unnecessary equipment. Or maybe to get accurate data the accelerometer needs to be in a fixed position in the vehicle and my phone moves around too much.

The only part of a system like this that doesn't work is sometimes the actual posted speed limit doesn't match what the insurance company has in its database and I have to call them and tell them they need to update it. The U.S has a lot of roads. Just keeping track of what the speed limit is for a given location in the U.S. would be difficult, but not impossible. Probably involves a whole lot of boring data entry work.