Lately, digital privacy and concerns about data collection have come to the fore in the public discourse. And there are good reasons for that. After all, people have every right to demand accountability from the data industry. It’s their data that’s been commoditized and used to push private businesses to new heights of profitability.
But the current regulatory landscape surrounding data – particularly in the US – is fragmented at best. That’s translated into a growing push for federal data privacy legislation that would tightly restrict the operations of data-focused businesses.
But the industry writ large still has an opportunity to shape the narrative and stave off regulatory overreach. By adopting the right kinds of ethical data policies, businesses can show the public that they’re trustworthy stewards of their data. Here are four ethical data practices every business should apply right away.
Seek Granular Permission
One of the industry practices that led to the present public backlash against data collection is that businesses began to use data without requesting the consent of its owners. In fact, most businesses didn’t even bother to disclose their data collection practices until forced to by public pressure or threats of penalties.
In recent years though, more businesses have made their data collection policies a matter of public knowledge. But that’s not enough. They should also embrace the practice of obtaining granular consent from individuals whose data they’re harvesting. This is already becoming the standard in Europe after the EU clarified the GDPR’s requirements for affirmative consent in 2020.
But even businesses with no legal obligation to follow the GDPR’s requirements should embrace granular consent. And they should make their efforts front-and-center, so users know about them. Doing so serves multiple purposes. First, it discloses – in fine detail – the exact nature of the business’s data usage. And second, it provides an ability to opt out of individual data practices.
In most cases, obtaining granular consent has no meaningful effect on data operations. People tend to allow data collection when they understand why it’s happening. And giving them a choice goes a long way toward making them participants rather than spectators in the data collection process.
Use Differential Privacy Whenever Possible
Another ethical data policy that every business should adopt is the use of differential privacy as a default whenever possible. Differential privacy offers a means of anonymizing data by introducing random variance. It involves the manipulation of data sets in a way that’s sufficient to defy efforts at deanonymization without altering the utility of the data itself.
Right now, differential privacy is at the heart of efforts by large data operations – like Google, Microsoft, and others – to offer users privacy while still collecting their data. And the sooner more businesses adopt the technique, the sooner the industry can shake the public perception that it’s a threat to individuals’ right to privacy.
Make Transparency an Operational Goal
Unfortunately, letting people know that the data you collect about them is anonymized isn’t enough to earn their trust. For that, it’s also necessary to show them how you’re using that data. That means working toward transparency in all data operations.
A great way to accomplish that is for businesses to make as much information about their data operations public as possible. Of course, such efforts cannot and should not risk exposing proprietary information or trade secrets. But making non-critical data algorithms open source and sharing as much about data processing practices as possible is advisable.
It’s also a good idea to avoid the development or use of black-box data algorithms as a matter of policy. Doing so helps to reassure the public that there’s adequate oversight over how their data gets used. Even when there’s no real reason for concern, non-transparent data processing will always engender mistrust.
Make Data a Visible Force for Good
Last but not least, businesses should consider how the data they collect might find other uses that serve the public good. For example, a study by Harvard Business School researchers demonstrated that the data collected by user-review site Yelp could also serve as a useful means of tracking economic activity and gentrification. That could then help to inform government policy to support and revitalize at-risk neighborhoods.
Businesses can create data-sharing programs to support such academic research efforts – with expanded user consent, of course – as a way of incentivizing users to share data. Or, they might consider data donation, perhaps to augment a school or charitable organization’s Giving Day campaign. They might even ask end users to choose the organizations they wish to support with their data to make them a part of the overall efforts.
The Takeaway
Although additional regulations and legislation surrounding data collection and use are inevitable, they don’t have to be as draconian as most in the data industry fear they will be. The best way to shape them in advance is for data-focused businesses to take positive steps to prove to the public that they’re not a threat to their privacy. Adopting the ethical practices detailed here is a great way to do that. And if enough businesses do so, the future of data collection might become a collaboration between businesses and individuals rather than the adversarial relationship it is today.
