The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) today launched a public consultation about the potential benefits and risks of Big Data for consumers and financial firms to determine whether any further regulatory or supervisory actions may be needed.
Big Data is a phenomenon linked to the ever increasing availability of data and advances in Information Technology tools, applications, platforms and systems to collect, process and analyse it. Big Data can generate ideas, solutions or predict certain events or behaviours and is already used in the financial industry.
The purpose of the consultation is for the ESAs to understand better what the Big Data phenomenon means for consumers, the financial industry and regulators, and they invite all stakeholders to share their views. Existing EU legislation on data protection, competition and consumer protection, which share the common goals of promoting economic growth, innovation and the welfare of individual consumers, are relevant for financial firms while not explicitly addressing Big Data. The Discussion Paper asks whether the existing regulatory framework is sufficiently flexible to cover Big Data, has gaps which need to be filled and how it impacts the use of Big Data technologies.
The consultation closes on 17 March 2017. The ESA statement and related information can be found here.