Organisations like Google, Facebook and Amazon, are building extensive profiles of you about who you are, what you have bought/liked/read and your preferences. This is nothing new, but has been around for years. In exchange for free’ services such as Gmail or Facebook, these organisations use extensive profiles to generate revenue through advertising that follows you across the web. Also, activities of agencies such as the NSA or the GCHQ collect massive amounts of data on your online activities and consequently possibly know more about you than you do yourself. Whether you like it or not. In the 21<sup>st</sup> century, privacy has taken a new meaning and consumers will have to learn how to deal with this.
Researchers at MIT and the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium have shown what privacy means today. Already a few years ago, they were able to identify, with 95% accuracy, citizens with just using four points of reference from their cell phone. They analysed data from 1,5 million European cell phone users over a span of 15 months. They only required four location points from antennas to identify 95% of all users. In other words, four smartphone location measurements during the course of a year are sufficient to identify you, from absolute anonymous data.
As such, times are changing and for consumers it is important to be aware of the changed situation. More and more organisations will start using customer data and they should if they want to remain competitive. Of course, this does not mean that organisations can completely ignore the privacy of their customers. On the contrary. Customers should not become the victim of the Big Data and organisations should stick to the four ethical guidelines to protect their customers:
Four Ethical Guidelines
Organisations should be transparent, so that consumers know what will be done with the data, today and in the future. They should keep their communication simple and understandable, so that also the digital immigrants understand what’s being done with the data. All data should be well secured and encrypted. As where data is collected, hackers will be active. Organisations should ensure that hackers do not stand a chance and if they do get access to the data, the data is useless. Finally, privacy should be part of the DNA, so that all employees understand the importance of it. The development of a quality mark, to ensure that organisations adhere to these guidelines, could be imaginable / desirable.
That having said, it will help consumers if they also are aware how to act in this new situation. Customers should understand what data they share and not absentmindedly accept policy statements or terms & conditions that result in sharing personal data. They should be cautious with what they share, for example on social networks. Everything on social networks is public information and accessible. So sharing a picture of your credit card on Facebook is probably not a good idea.
Next to that, consumers should be more careful when downloading a new app on your phone. Many of us simply download an App and without paying any attention or reading the terms and conditions, accept all requests to access personal data ranging from location data to contact details. Dealing with this more consciously, would be a good starting point for consumers.
Finally, consumers should not simply accept the new deal and demand that companies will take care of their personal data, either through legislation or by boycotting reckless organisations. Fortunately, increasingly we see startups developing solutions that give back the control of personal data to the consumers and new technologies such as Blockchain will be catalysts as well.
In today’s data-driven world, where access to data and the right analytical capabilities mean a competitive advantage for organisations, businesses have an incentive to collect as much data as possible. With the increasing amounts of data breaches and personal data that can be bought easily through (illegal) data brokers, consumers should be aware what data they share with whom. At the same time, we should force organisations to adhere to ethical guidelines when collecting all that data, if we want to prevent a 1984 scenario’, which might be closer than we think.
