In accordance with the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), Privacy is defined as “the right to be in peace, and to be free from any interference or interference. Privacy in information means the right to exercise some control over the way in which personal information is gathered and utilized.”
Imagine all of your clients and potential customers telling you that they prefer to be left in peace. As a marketing professional who is responsible for executing a growth strategy, this would be unimaginable. We are in an extremely exciting period in the world of business, which has seen rapid advances in technology have resulted in huge-scale implementations of radical digitization strategies.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as predictive technology, are now commonplace across all industries: using AI, we can forecast patterns, shifts in consumer behaviors, and the effect that new technologies can affect our business development strategies. The key to the strategy of increasing customer satisfaction is data, customer data is “the new oil’.
Being able to interact one-on-one with your customers in a personal way, sharing only those things that are relevant to them, being able to address their questions before they ask them, and providing genuine value before the first sales call begins are the things that every marketing and sales executive would like to achieve. Imagine sitting down with your CEO in order to present the strategy you have for growing your customer base, and then demonstrating how you’ve added value and made connections with every customer as if they were your childhood friends. Do you think you can get promoted? Massive bonus at the end of the year?
Customers and executives alike want an effective growth strategy that will contain only timely and relevant information that is communicated exactly in that your customers would want to hear it. To achieve this customers must give a company access to their data, and this could be the place where Privacy Paradox is introduced.
What is the Privacy Paradox?
The “Privacy Paradox” was coined in 2001, by Barry Brown in research on the privacy experiences of internet users. In this research on the early days of internet shopping, Barry discovered a conflict between consumers’ worries about security and the desire of customers to make use of loyalty cards at the supermarket which could monitor their shopping habits. It is called the Privacy Paradox simply says this “Customers don’t trust companies with their personal information, however, they are still hoping to enjoy a personalized online shopping experience’.
The most difficult issue that your customers have to face is that, while they are aware that their data is important, however, they aren’t aware of what value it has. They gain value by doing business with your company however there isn’t any tangible or audible sensation associated with the exchange of personal information. As a result, consumers don’t feel the effects of their transaction in the same manner they would when they make the transfer of money associated with a particular product or service. Companies have been keeping and storing data about customers and using it to predict behavior for years, sometimes for the benefit of the customer but at other times, to their disadvantage. To safeguard the privacy rights of the individual numerous authorities and regulatory agencies across the globe have been developing and implementing rules and laws on the way organizations gather, process, store as well as transmit and destroy personal data, and return the power to protect private to the consumer.
Privacy Regulations and Their Impact
We are all aware of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP) being drafted by the EU. Similar laws have also been enacted across different jurisdictions and others are still in process, including those of CCPA (California), CPA (Australia), PIPEDA (Canada) in addition to PDPA (Singapore). These are all extraterritorial, which means they are applicable in all jurisdictions. It is commonly believed about privacy is an IT or security concern – that could not be further than the reality. Privacy is a broader issue for organizations that affects all departments. Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service are all at the front. Most privacy laws provide the rights of the consumer and all of them impact how we communicate with our clients. These rights include:
- The right to consent The right to process personally identifiable data has to be explicit and given with intention.
- right for Data Protection – Personally identifiable information should be secured by effective and adequate security safeguards.
- The right to Access and RectificationIndividuals must be able to, on request, examine all data gathered and correct it, in the event that it is needed.
- The right to be Gone The data that is taken in should be permanently erased on legal demand, including the archived data.
The four concepts mentioned above, together with others that aren’t listed in this article, place the burden of collecting, protecting, and using at the feet of the company regardless of how the data was collected. The responsibility for this comes with massive fines for misusing or failing to properly protect vital data. For us who are business development specialists, this causes a tangle of competing interests. It is no longer possible to keep or utilize customer data without the legal requirement that clearly ties the data’s use to the reason for which it was collected.
- So What’s Next?
Privacy regulations for data should be seen as a blessing rather than a curse. Compliance with the proper privacy regulations will result in us collecting data, storing, and utilizing less useless data since the fewer data we collect and the less likely it is of a violation occurring. This will result in an improved competitive approach since collecting less information is a requirement to collect more targeted information and the more specific the data we collect, the more effective the data we collect. However, even without any regulations, customers are becoming more informed and conscious of their information and are expecting a fair justification for the use of their personal data. For the majority of consumers, it’s about how information is used and collected in the first place, not necessarily about what information is being gathered.