Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the comments made by the Commissioner. Perhaps she will talk to other parties here and ask them to support my No Consent, No Sale Bill that would prevent the sale of family homes to vultures. I would like to hear her view, as a Commissioner, on the Commission's decision on 25 September to appeal the Apple case. Does she support the stance of the Commission to lodge an apple in the courts?

Am I right to presume the Commissioner has responsibility for insurance issues as they are part of financial services? I am sure she is aware of a report by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, EIOPA, as it is the regulator of the industry at a European level. What concerns, if any, does she have about the use of big data and big data analytics, BDA, tools by insurance companies as clearly shown in the EIOPA report? The report states, "Some insurance firms also track (public) social media posts for counter-fraud services", which I do not think anybody would have a major issue with. The report also states:

...provided either by specialist counter-fraud service or by specialised employees not necessarily with the use of BDA tools. Some firms also reportedly use the information provided by web analytics tools and social media listening tools for analysis of user behaviour and for pricing and underwriting purposes.

The report goes on to say that artificial intelligence and machine learning has been developed and is used by insurance companies to read information, pictures and videos from social media, which they use to price their insurance policies. This is part of dual pricing and of how insurance companies are using big data to push up premiums and charge the highest they can. What concern does the Commissioner have about the fact that anybody listening to this conversation is probably unaware that an image they post on their social media or a video of them on a family holiday may be used by some of the largest insurance companies in Ireland to determine how far they can push up their premium before they move or shop around? What action, if any, does she plan to take in relation to this?