What is the role of insurance regulators in dealing with consumer data protection risks arising from increased data availability and usage?

Across the globe industries, businesses are collecting, storing and using increasing amounts of consumer data. This has been made possible by the growth in the reach of the internet, particularly through smartphone penetration, and the increased capacity to collect and share data on individuals. The technological developments in data analytics have increasingly allowed businesses to use this data to better understand consumers to design products suited to their individual needs and to micro-target advertising. The increasing amount of data available on individual consumers, combined with these improved data-processing tools, has enabled the monetisation of consumer data, as businesses recognise its value.

This data space bringing with it major new risks to consumers. The relative recency of many of these developments means that, in many countries, regulation to deal with these new risks is still “catching up” or does not exist yet. The nature of the largest data collectors, who rely on a global network, renders them unrestricted by national and/or regional borders, which creates further complexities for regulators. This paper by access to insurance initiative and supported by cenfri gives insights to insurance regulators on how to deal with these emerging risks.