Is your insurance company watching you online and is it legal?

New AI and other models can track every move you make online. Photo: Adobe - New research by Dr Zofia Bednarz has found insurers, using new AI and other models, may be able to collect your online data, and apart from anti-discrimination laws, there are no effective constraints on them using that data to price contracts. The insurance industry will soon benefit from technological advancements, such as developments in  Artificial Intelligence  ('AI') and  Big Data. These tools promise cost reduction, the creation of innovative products, and the potential to offer more efficient and tailored services to consumers. However, these new opportunities are mirrored by new legal and regulatory challenges. What if insurers are using your TV watching list to price your car insurance? What if your insurer knows your diet from your online grocery shopping habits or your fitness levels from your wearable fitness tracker? A new study from Dr Zofia Bednarz , Lecturer in the Law School at University of Sydney and co-author Dr Kayleen Manwaring (UNSW Law & Justice), has found insurers, using models such as new machine learning algorithms, may be able to collect your online and other data - and apart from anti-discrimination laws, there are no effective constraints on them using that data to price contracts. "Insurance firms may be using our data collected from a variety of sources - social media, customer loyalty programs or online shopping - to set prices of insurance products and we have no real control over how our data is then used, processed, aggregated and combined," said Dr Bednarz, who is associate investigator in the Arc Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society.