Thiago Junqueira launches book of algorithmic bias in insurance

11/06/2020

Thiago Junqueira has launched the book Tratamento de dados pessoais e discriminação algorítmica nos seguros [“Treatment of personal data and algorithmic bias in insurance”], published by Revista dos Tribunais. The launch ceremony received highlight at the  ConJur legal portal , which noted the groundbreaking character of the subject covered, in the Portuguese language.

See the summary on the book’s back cover:

Te evaluation of the risk of a (potential) insured for pricing of the insurance contract has legitimate grounds and is supported by rules on the matter. Nevertheless, complex questions naturally arise: What opposing rights are in play when the private insurer uses an individual’s personal data to judge his/her risk profile? What safeguards and limits are necessary for treatment of these data? Above all, how can one distinguish between admissible differentiation and inadmissible discrimination?

In a groundbreaking work in Portuguese, Thiago Junqueira analyzes these and other questions associated with the difficulty of establishing a balance between the free initiative of the insurer to define its risk classification model and the protection of the existential rights of consumers/insureds.

Besides investigating the effects of the tendential expansion of big data and artificial intelligence, he demonstrates the ambiguous relationship, in the field of algorithmic decisions, between protection of privacy and the fight against discrimination, as well as the growing convergence of the direct and indirect modality of discrimination, at the end proposing strategies for prevention in insurance relationships.

Due to its combination of academic rigor and practical analysis of such an important and novel theme, the book has attracted praise from renowned civil law scholars:

“Reasons abound to carefully read the thesis of Thiago Junqueira. Much has been written about the impact of new technologies on various aspects of the law. Few works, however, will have the same refinement of research and boldness to identify the paths ahead.” Bruno Miragem – in the foreword

Tratamento de Dados Pessoais e Discriminação Algorítmica nos Seguros combines the most innovative technology with problems that are deeply rooted in the humanist culture, and is poised to become a new benchmark in the Brazilian legal literature.” Anderson Schreiber – in the preface

The book is available at the site of the publisher

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