Opinion
Despite constant negative headlines, individual and societal benefits of sharing our data to companies still exist.
As a digital analyst I collect data from people like you everyday to help companies understand your behavior. I truly love my work, and find it quite thrilling to dig into data and use a combination of creativity, psychology, logic and mathematics to find those unseen patterns that can help my clients reach their goals. Nothing beats the satisfaction I feel when I’m in this zone and everything just flows smoothly.
However, a while ago I had a bit of an identity crisis about my occupation.
Why? Because everyday there seems to be a new scandal connected to customer data collection. There’s security breaches, companies illegally buying and selling personal information, and who hasn’t heard about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or Netflix’s latest bombshell, The Social Dilemma, by now?
All these negative news affected me and I finally thought – Why on earth am I collecting people’s data? Before entering the world of tech, I used to work in the humanitarian sector (Oh, the irony!) and had dreams of saving the world. So what happened? Had I joined the dark forces now and completely banished morals and ethics?
And so, to make myself feel better, I decided to do some research into the topic and naively googled "why it’s good to share your data to companies." Yes, I’m not joking – that’s literally what I typed in, and lo and behold I found…nothing. Crickets. Sure, there were some articles scattered here and there that discussed the benefits of customer data sharing but only from a company perspective, never from a customer point of view.
Therefore, besides helping companies to cash in, is the data that we share beneficial in any way for us, for society, for the world? Or is it all useless?
Well, I’m here to tell you that not everything is as doom and gloom as it seems. After quite some reflection and research I was able to discover several benefits of customer data sharing from an individual and societal point of view. And because I wasn’t able to find any good articles on this topic, I created my own (you’re welcome!).
In the following sections, I will present four common ways customer data collection can benefit us as individuals as well as our society. The purpose is to take the discussion beyond the negative headlines we see everyday regarding data, and provide a more balanced view of reality – one that can hopefully be the starting point for new discussions about data sharing benefits to companies.
n.b.my focus here is only on customer data which refers to all personal, behavioural, and demographic data.
Let’s dig in.
1. Building and creating innovation
Tech giants usually sit on vast amounts of customer data that have previously only been shared to other companies looking to make a profit. By collaborating with NGO:s and governmental agencies however, the data being shared can lead to invaluable discoveries boosting innovation and solving humanitarian problems.
A not so familiar part of Facebook is their Data for Good program which aims to solve some of the worst humanitarian crises occurring today. By sharing anonymous data from their users, Facebook have (among other initiatives) created a population density map, in collaboration with The World Bank and Columbia University; and a disaster map to prevent natural disasters, in collaboration with The Red Cross, UNICEF and The World Food programme. Currently, they are also working on flattening the COVID-19 curve by offering maps on population movements to researchers and non-profits, so they can get a better understanding of how the virus may spread.
Several other data sharing initiatives worth mentioning is Uber, who in 2015 shared data with the city of Boston to assist the city’s planning and traffic analysis efforts; the telecommunications company Telefónica who is sharing call data to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to measure the movements of people in Colombia due to climate change; and the biotechnology company 23andMe, who is sharing consented data to medical research allowing partners to investigate over 1,000 diseases, and health conditions.
2. Increased security
Media often share articles and documentaries about the many risks that occur when we share our data to companies, and how "big brother" is watching us from everywhere. Though these risks certainly exist, they are not portraying a full picture. The paradox here is that everyone can be tracked – including criminals – which subsequently does create a safer society both online and offline!
When I lived in South Africa for example – a beautiful country but also ranked as the 5th most dangerous place to live in the world — the locals would always advise me to use an Uber instead of a normal taxi, simply because they found it to be safer. And why was it safer? Because wherever I went, the app was there, tracking every move I made. However, the app not only tracked me as the consumer, but also the activity of the driver. Previous rides, where he/she picked me up and dropped me off, could all be traced back to the data in the app. This undoubtedly created a safety net for both me as the consumer and the driver.
Another example is that the police quite often solve difficult cases by collecting data from social media to catch criminals. For example, In 2008 police in the United States managed to arrest 72 criminals from a famous street gang by pulling out vast amounts of data from Facebook, analyze that data and find links between the gang members and their network. Fighting crime by using this method has in fact become so popular, that last year the FBI proposed to build a new interactive "social media early alerting tool" that if realized, will help them identify and monitor relevant information from social media platforms, to prevent criminal attacks.
Finally, the very same data that is often used for identity theft and other criminal activities online, is also used by companies to detect fraudulent activities and undertake safety measures. Many companies for example send notifications to their customers as soon as an unusual activity is detected, such as login from a new location or device. And credit card companies regularly monitor their clients’ shopping habits to establish individual profiles, which helps them keep track of standard operating procedures from the cardholder, versus unexpected transactions.
3. Helping small companies grow
Personalized ads have exploded in the market during the last few years, but beyond providing us with relevant content, they have a deeper value that is often not discussed but is equally important: Giving small businesses a chance to grow and give me as the consumer a chance to discover them. None of this would be possible without my data.
Let me explain what I mean.
The picture above is an ad on instagram of an organization I started following recently called Javawhiskers. It’s Sweden’s first cat-café, and besides having a very cute name, they also do good in society by giving visitors a chance to adopt a cat. Since I’m obsessed with cats, I was of course also targeted. I don’t mind though, as I’m very happy to support them. What I find interesting about this example however, is that even with a small following, this organization was still able to reach out and target me. They were actually able to cut through the noise, get past all the big corporate names, and get me to notice them.
To give you some perspective of how incredible this is, think about this: Last year a 30 second TV commercial in the US cost an average of 104.7 thousand dollars – and that’s not even including the price of the production. With these price-tags, small organizations and companies had no chance to compete with the big giants back in the days, simply because they couldn’t afford it.
Now compare the TV commercial price tag to an ad on instagram, where the average cost is around 6.70 dollar per 1000 views. This means that even a company with a small budget can start advertising and compete for our attention. This is quite revolutionary, because never in our history has it been so easy, cheap and convenient to reach out to people from all corners of the world with just a few clicks.
Now, I know you might be thinking that this is all thanks to social media, and social media platforms indeed deserve some credit for being able to give small business owners a platform to be seen and heard. But social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram would be nothing without the vast amount of data they collect from us, their users. And what can business owners do with that data? They use it to target us and subsequently grow.
The point is, without access to my data, I would have been forced to see ads that have no meaning to me. But the right ads at the right time and place can actually bring me value. In addition, it helps to create a healthy competitive environment which not only benefits me as the consumer but also society overall through its economic effect.
4. Better user experience on a website/app
As you can see in the image above I’m entering IKEA:s website and they are asking me to accept cookies. When I enter and accept cookies, my overall behavior on the site such as all the clicks I make, downloads, signup forms, pages, and much more can be tracked.
By collecting and analyzing my data, companies like IKEA can subsequently create an optimized, friendlier experience for me on their site. They can see what I like, dislike, which products are popular, unpopular, where problems occur, where opportunities arise, etc. It also allows them to remember me so that I don’t have to go through the same obstacles again. With my information they can adjust, optimize and always stay updated on my preferences, which minimizes waste and gives me a better experience.
Further more, convenient features such as one-click ordering, autofill checkout and automatic payment processing are also made possible when I share my data, making my business transactions much more efficient.
To demonstrate how important it is to know what visitors want and have data about it, let’s look at the image above. This is a perfect example of a horrible user experience. Sure, most websites don’t look like this anymore, but it was not too long ago that they actually did. And sure, new tools and technologies in the market have helped to upgrade these sites, but companies have also become increasingly understanding of what visitors want and don’t want when they navigate through their websites, because they have data to back it up.
Conclusion
In the end I got over the identity crisis I experienced about my occupation, as I realized not everything is as black and white as the media portrays it to be.
An optimal data-sharing society is absolutely achievable if the data we share is provided with consent and we can have full ownership and control of it. This scenario makes it possible for us as consumers to have the choice to weigh in if our data-sharing is worth the trade-off of what we will gain. However, full ownership and control of data is not enough – If we decide to share our data with companies, they also need to be honest and clear about the benefits we will receive from this arrangement.
Ownership, guaranteed Privacy and explicit transparency will subsequently increase the rate of data-sharing which then leads to several benefits for the individual and society, such as the examples mentioned in this article.
To be clear however, an optimal data-sharing society does come with a price: Companies have to give up certain privileges and conveniences, and consumers have to release certain autonomy, and essentially trust that their personal information is in safe hands.
A question worth asking then is: Are you willing to pay that price?
