Data Privacy Day: Selected Quotes and Insights from the Industry Leaders- Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 revealed fascinating angles on how to deal with Data Privacy. Yet, we found out that Data Privacy Day continues to be celebrated as an event. Instead, we should ensure that Data Privacy becomes a wholesome practice throughout the industry, delivering consistent guidelines to all the organizations included in the system.

Recently, DoubleVerify (DV) announced the first programmatic platform certification program for comprehensive Connected TV fraud protection. We read how Sourcepoint’s OTT data privacy commitment shaped up before the launch of CCPA last month.

At the time of DV’s Programmatic TV data privacy announcement, COO of the company, Matt McLaughlin said –

“DV has developed the most comprehensive and accurate CTV fraud identification in the industry, identifying millions of devices and hundreds of applications as invalid. DV’s CTV Targeting Certification gives advertisers confidence that their CTV investment is protected when buying through the market-leading platforms that have successfully completed this certification.”

Time to Generate Contextual Control for Personal Information Management 

Shahrokh Shahidzadeh, CEO at Acceptto, says –

“Today, everyone must assume that each and every one of their credentials has already been stolen. This includes those credentials that haven’t even been created yet.

Due to the frequency of data breaches, we all must operate under the assumption that it’s only a matter of time that we become aware of the fact that our credentials and personal information are compromised. Protecting our citizens’ identity and privacy requires new regulatory measures and the collaboration of private and public sectors including all (large or small) companies that today are taking overt advantage of harvested consumer data that is readily available for corporate welfare but not well protected.

I believe that 2020 will be the year of new solutions that employ a combination of multi-modal and contextual controls that continuously and accurately protect user identity and privacy with the assumption that all your online credentials are already compromised.”

Acceptto is a Portland, Oregon-based provider of Continuous Behavioral Authentication software.

Create a Code of Ethics, Using AI

Draw inspiration from Appen.

In October 2019, Appen released an AI-trained system for data management, called the Crowd Code of Ethics. The initiative reflects the importance of the Crowd’s well-being in creating data for AI systems and applications. Appen is a member of the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC), a global network of businesses creating jobs for those most in need.

Appen’s CEO Mark Brayan said –

“The AI industry depends on the people who collect and label the data. They help make Machine Learning-empowered solutions possible and today we are formalizing our commitment to their well-being. We believe that our customers should know that their partners stand for the ethical treatment of contractors.”

Kerri Reynolds, Appen’s Senior Vice President of Crowd Sourcing Operations and Human Resources, said –

“Our Crowd Code of Ethics is important to ensuring that our Crowd is treated equitably around the world. The Code of Ethics aligns with our corporate values and demonstrates our commitment to Crowd wellness.”

Sebastian Kohlmeier, Senior Manager – Program Management and Business Operations at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) added –

“We support Appen’s efforts to develop a Code of Ethics for its crowd. We believe these considerations are essential for both the crowd and the industry to thrive, and this complements our ethical pricing and best practices guidelines we issued earlier this year.”

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence was founded in 2014 by Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen to conduct AI research and engineering in service of the common good.

Education on the Most Compliant and Effective Ways to Protect Data Has to Be Continued

Darren Guarnaccia, CPO at Crownpeak, says –

“Privacy regulations aren’t going away; in fact, we’re going to see more demand for additional enforcements. Already this year we’ve had the roll-out of CCPA and there have been discussions on further legislation in the US, Thailand and the UK, which is looking at a specific law to protect children’s privacy online.

While it’s great that there are regulations coming into place that offer consumers these protections, as an industry we need to keep working year-round to create a culture of privacy that encompasses all involved and instills a new level of customer trust. Education on the most compliant and effective ways to protect data has to be continued — companies also need to incorporate privacy as a positive user experience — and enforcement must send a firm message that those who take a wait and see approach will not be tolerated.

We support Data Privacy Day and any efforts that help promote the importance of individual privacy rights, and the need to safeguard personally identifiable information; this can only have far-reaching benefits for consumers, brands and vendors.”

Resellers and System Integrators Will Play an Increasingly Vital Role as Critical Applications Move to the Cloud

SIOS Technology’s Frank Jablonski, VP, Global Marketing, says –

“As the migration of enterprise applications to the cloud accelerates and matures, the need to ensure mission-critical high availability (HA) will create opportunities for resellers and system integrators. This window of opportunity is forming as enterprises seek more robust HA solutions that have yet to be fully integrated into the application and system software.

Some system integrators may have the expertise and resources needed to leverage open-source software in their Linux offerings. But an increasing percentage will choose to integrate solutions purpose-built to provide HA and disaster recovery protection, as these have proven to be more dependable for the customer, while also being just as (if not more) profitable for the integrator.”

Data is Old; Humans Are the New Oil

Joseph Carson, Chief Security Scientist at Thycotic, commented –

“We hear the term ‘data is the new oil’ however I disagree with this. Humans are the new oil – we are the ‘product’ and data is the commodity which is transacted to create value, so it stands to reason that technology companies are data-hungry and want as much of this information as possible.”

It can be argued that the end of privacy as we know it is closer than you may think.

In essence, privacy allows citizens to be free and when you take away or constrain privacy, you take away a citizen’s freedom.

The reality today is that almost everyone is being tracked and monitored 24/7 with thousands of cameras recording your expressions, fashion, interactions and speech to determine what you need, what you might be thinking and who you are meeting. Algorithms can even determine what your next action might be.

Privacy Should be Universal.

In fact, Privacy, Security, and Trust must come as a package; they are all related and needed in order to build a cyber-resilient society. If you sacrifice privacy you are also sacrificing security and ultimately end in a lack of trust.

Thycotic is a Washington D.C. based provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions.

Protect Data to Maintain the Trust and Respect of the Public

Heather Paunet, Vice President of Product Management at Untangle says –

“Data privacy has become a hot topic over the last few years, especially with the abundance of large-scale data breaches. It is important that organizations of all sizes take data privacy seriously and proactively ensure personally identifiable information (PII) is protected. Protecting data in the event of a breach is crucial to maintain the trust and respect of the public.

Businesses must realize that the GDPR rules are not a hindrance, but a chance to show consumers that they can trust them and that they are taking a proactive approach to data privacy.

On a consumer level, protecting your data is becoming more and more difficult as apps and websites demand the information. However, consumers can be proactive and choose what they share. For example, don’t fill out social profiles completely (address, high school/college, birth date are all considered PII).

Breaches on social media sites, such as Facebook, are a prime example of sharing too much information through a “fun, free quiz”; those participants’ information was sold to advertisers without their knowledge.

Sharing your social security number is never a good idea. The only businesses that need that information are your work, bank and possibly your healthcare provider; anyone else asking is just phishing for more of your PII.”

Untangle is a San Jose, California-based provider of comprehensive network security for SMBs.

Develop Differential Privacy Systems to Handle Unique Customer Experience Requirements

Ali Golshan, CTO and Co-founder at StackRox says, 

“Considering the volume and range of data being collected from services and users, targeting and reaching the user has become a very personal experience. We can clearly see the negative impacts of this in politics and the American culture as a whole.

Analytic infrastructures allow for powerful insights into data, but they create compliance and security risks for companies because data is often dumped into data lakes without proper labeling, auditing, or policy enforcement. We are seeing companies such as Apple building trust with customers by providing visibility and transparency into how that data is used.

One key feature for data privacy is ensuring up-to-date controls and configurations around access. One method of obfuscation is differential privacy, which allows providers to offer customized services for users while maintaining privacy for individual users.”

StackRox is a Mountain View, California-based leader in security for containers and Kubernetes.

(To participate in our Insights and Quotes Series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com)