According to the Department of Infrastructure and Transport, up till November last year there were 1,185 road deaths – and even money says that some of those were caused by unsafe drivers. Insurance company AAMI has a vested interest in safe driving, not only is it good business sense to encourage safe driving but it saves lives as well. AAMI has released a new app called Safe Driver to Google Play (and iOS) which rates drivers, and for a limited time offers you the chance to win $100,000. However, people who have root access (or for iOS users, jailbroken their device) can’t play according to AAMI.
The app, which you install on your smartphone, uses GPS to detect when you’re driving and can then record speed, breaking and acceleration, as well as driver fatigue by measuring the distance and time travelled and how many breaks you take. Scores are awarded based on these records and your points are tallied on a leader board, with an overall winner at the end of March winning the $100,000 prize.
It’s an attractive offer, which AAMI has been advertising heavily on TV, but Android and iOS users who have downloaded the app and have either rooted or jailbroken their phone are finding that they aren’t able to use it. Comments from Google Play indicate that this is a deliberate decision, with the main reply to 1-star ratings for this reason :
We reached out to AAMI to find out if there was a specific reason for the ban on rooted or jailbroken phones and a AAMI spokesperson advised:
On the advice of our cybersecurity team, we decided that while (we) have a large competition running offering a significant prize, we would withhold support for jail broken or rooted phones. Once the competition ends however, we will review that position.
While a number of GPS spoofers don’t require root, it’s still understandable that with $100,000 on the line, that it’s the fairest thing to do to have a level playing field. Of course you could always use an app like ‘Rootkeeper’ or turn off root in the SuperSU to briefly hide your root access while you use the app and then re-enable it once you’re done.
At this stage, the competition is the main drawcard for using the app, so installing it once the prize is off the table may not be something a lot of people want to do. However, we’re all interested in safe driving aren’t we?
Do you have root access on your phone? Did you try to use the AAMI Safe Drier app?
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