OSLO, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Artificial intelligence (AI) will help both insurance companies and customers in Norway to save money if the latter are willing to share private information, public broadcaster NRK reported Friday.
Norwegian insurance company Sparebank 1 Forsikring has decided to utilize artificial intelligence in providing insurance. This technology will allow monitoring people who are on holiday.
The company expects to save millions of dollars only on controlling glass damages, the report said.
"A customer can be for example notified that a flood is heading towards the house or that the person is moving in an area where there is a lot of pickpockets," Lars Erlend Leganger from Sparebank 1 Forsikring told NRK.
Leganger expressed belief in a future where it is forced to share personal information with the insurance companies to get a good price on the insurance, but "this is not necessarily a solution or a goal of how the future's insurance will be."
"One should respect that not everyone wants to share such information with their insurance companies, but if someone feels like it, I think that companies should face the challenges and get ready with the security services," he said.
The company, however, has no specific plans to offer such services, and would eventually first assess whether the customers are willing to share that type of information, Leganger explained.
Catharina Nes, specialist director at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, warned on necessity to be careful when collecting personal date.
"When the insurance companies now apply new technology, there are in practice no limits on how much data they can collect from us. Insurers are therefore facing some dilemmas in the future..." she told NRK.
Nes added that data collection, when being too extensive, may impose restrictions on people's lives.
"You become more aware of how you behave to get a favorable price. This can of course be good. But it can also mean that people avoid doing completely legitimate things that they would otherwise do. That would be a life in which everyone lives on the narrow path," she said.
According to Nes, insurance companies must avoid that customers feel pressured to share data to get better and cheaper insurance.
"Otherwise, we can get a development where those who do not want to be traced get so expensive insurance that they rather choose to save money in bank," she said.
In a survey conducted by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority , only 13 percent of Norwegians stated that they wanted a development where insurance prices were calculated from detailed sensor information from their everyday lives.