Search engine history, analysis of shopping habits, information published on social media, logging in using your name, surname, e-mail address and more … there are billions of bits of data on the web that are aggregated and analyzed – in a completely legal manner, because as consumers we consent to those business models of technological giants in which we, as users, pay for the service with privacy. “I have read the regulations and accept their content” – this is the phrase that many of us encounter every day. And how many of us accept the regulations without reading them? Caring about what information we share using the Internet should become a habit for us, especially in a digital reality where data will be used on an increasingly larger scale.
As online consumers, we are now more and more open to sharing our data for the benefit that we can achieve. When shopping at our favorite brands, we agree to share our data with them, especially if it ultimately contributes to a better experience, such as a personalized offer or preselection of offered products based on specific needs. However, this situation also has a second perspective – a list of one hundred contacts to people with a specific need (e.g. the need to lose weight, buy a new car or a wedding dress) is worth from several dozen to even several hundred zlotys. This data may also come from social networking sites, from which advertisers can read, for example, whether we are just after moving to a new apartment, and then offer us a whole range of services that match our profile and our needs. We can ask ourselves the question: “does someone have the right to sell my data to other entities?”, But then we should also answer the second question: “have I read the regulations of each website that I use?”.
Buyers are more likely to provide consumer data than personal data:
Capgemini’s research into consumer data management has shown that, unlike large tech companies or social media, only a small fraction of consumer and retail product organizations have a strong foundation in data-driven decision making. It is in this area, in turn, that consumers are already ready to share a large amount of information. These companies must make efforts to improve their infrastructure for sharing, analyzing data and the behavior associated with it.
Almost half (45%) of all buyers declare their willingness to share data on how they consume or use products via online surveys, interviews and forms. Over a third of buyers (39%) declare their willingness to share personal data, such as demographic data or product preferences. When combined with existing information sets, this new customer data can be very valuable to an organization. There are many areas where analytics can be applied. Systems focused on generating new insights are now emerging. They involve overlaying behavioral and target data that has never been combined before to see completely new opportunities for engagement and growth – remodeling the use of data to animate product or service development and consumer experiences.
As a conscious society, we expect better supervision:
Large tech organizations know how to use our data – that’s what entire business models are based on. As indicated by the Polish Economic Institute, leading technology concerns are currently collecting data on Polish users worth PLN 6 billion.
Advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning create a combination that allows organizations such as Facebook to predict our behavior very accurately – even if we think we’re extraordinary and have nothing to do with how we operate. It is the results of the research that show that we are extremely predictable as units operating in the network. Highly advanced systems are able to accurately predict our actions and trends. This is one of the reasons why caution is so important today.
“Of course, it is difficult to completely protect ourselves from sharing data – it would take away the ability to use certain resources and services. Nevertheless, it is important to be cautious and attentive as well as to really understand the goals, principles of operation and regulations of the websites. To some extent, we can control who and how uses our personal data – there are privacy laws that require digital platforms to inform, and in particular to obtain consent to access our data and before they, for example, sell it to third parties. Of course, this consent is easily obtained from the average user who is faced with an election rem “I provide data or do not use the website”. Meanwhile, as a consequence, we give websites the opportunity to legally use information about us, from registration data to private messages in chats. As Europeans, we are privileged because we have the option to withdraw our consent and request the deletion or restriction of the processing of our data at any time. And although such decisions take away the possibility of using the services, we still have a choice,” comments Edward Gołda, Data Protection Officer at Capgemini Polska.
We are a conscious society aware of the fact that we most often pay for access to free websites and information with our own privacy – according to the analyzes of the Polish Economic Institute, as many as 77% of Poles have this awareness. At the same time, 87% of us say that technology companies know too much about us and should be subject to greater control. Research shows that the average Polish user is willing to pay even a dozen or so zlotys for preventing the largest tech companies from having access to their data and activity history. No wonder – these companies collect information about our work, income level, race, religion, political opinion and clicked ads, as well as this data such as phone number, email address, location and type of devices used. All this information, at best, can be used by advertisers, but unfortunately they are not the only people using the knowledge available on the Internet. That is why it is so important to control what we share.
Author: Capgemini Polska
