UK watchdog drops plans for review of Big Data use by insurers

Every action, interaction, question and decision by consumers generates data, and making sense of it — or data analytics — is becoming a big business.

LONDON: Britain's markets watchdog has dropped plans for a formal market review of whether Big Data might make it harder or more expensive for some customers to buy car and home insurance, saying there was no evidence of that so far. 

Insurers are increasingly using technology to extract value from large sets of data on customers – which can include tracking customers' use of social media or even driving habits.