La profilazione dell’investitore nell’era dei big data. I rischi dell’estremizzazione della regola del “know your customer” (The Customer's profiling in the Era of Big Data.The Risks related to the radicalization of the "know your customer"'s role)

At European level, information that may be collected through new technologies, for its predictive potential, is considered an asset of great value that will become essential for the future "data economy". This observation is particularly true for the financial market, which is characterized by a high number of digital data stored by companies. The financial services’ nature, in other words, is radically changing, moving from the traditional model to a digital one, thanks to mobile devices, cloud computing, social media and especially to big data, i.e. to that new branch of computer science that aims to manage exceptionally wide information database. In this context, the relationship between financial intermediaries and investors is also changing, with particular regard to the so called profiling. Through the analysis of the digital information regarding the individual – information produced by the use of accounts, consumer credit, credit/debit cards, mortgages, etc., but also thanks to the participation to social media - operators will soon be able to identify the "type" and "preferences" of each customer and will be able to offer no longer only "adeguate" to his/her "financial experience," but also to his/her "life experience" tout court. The paper aims to investigate the impact that big data can have on investor profiling, trying to highlight the compatibility and the problems of this evolution with respect to the regulatory framework based on MiFID 2. Moreover, it will try to reflect on how this system can be consistent with the individual right to be let alone.