Section 135 of the Italian Insurance Code (Legislative Decree no. 209/2005) set up a centralized accidents/claims database, managed by the Italian supervisory authority for the insurance industry (ISVAP), for the purpose of more efficiently prevent, detect and prosecute fraudulent behaviors concerning compulsory insurance for Italian-registered motor vehicles.
Yesterday the Industry Commission of the Italian Senate passed an amendment to the law converting the government decree no. 1 of 24 January 2012 (so called "liberalization decree"), setting up two additional antifraud databases, i.e. the "database of witnesses" and the "database of damaged parties".
The amendment provides that a regulation will be jointly approved by ISVAP, the Ministry for Economic Development, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Italian Privacy Authority so as to further regulate the operation and organization of the new databases
So far the applicable privacy law prevented insurance companies from creating private antifraud databases and processing personal data of witnesses and damaged parties without their prior consent. Should the amendment be confirmed by the Italian Parliament, there will be a substantial step forward in the fight against frauds as insurance companies will now have the possibility to rely on a sound legal basis for carrying out antifraud data processing, although through a centralized and public database.
Stay tuned for more updates regarding this law.
Do you want to know more about the above? Feel free to contact me, Marco Leone (marco.leone@dlapiper.com).