By Naked CIO, 21 July 2008 14:58
COMMENT
The outcry about the amount of data held on individuals is entirely understandable, says the Naked CIO. Our lives would clearly be much better if more information were held.
Over the past few years we've had some feverish debate about ID cards. But then again arguments about information sharing between agencies and healthcare institutions have also raised the temperature a few notches.
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On top of that we've had the drive towards national data consolidation in the public and private sectors.
The first reaction is always outrage: people will know too much about us.
But are we criminals? Do we have something to hide? There are benefits to this sharing. After all, security is a growing concern and the ability for, say, healthcare professionals to diagnose and cure patients has to be positive, right?
Having worked in a customer service-based industry for many years, I am also acutely aware that customers expect businesses to know about them.
The buying public assume businesses know their preferences and more importantly their dislikes or bad experiences. Of course, in many cases these are based on a single relationship with a customer and a business.
My company uses professional services to clean and enhance customer data, identifying attributes such as income, propensity to purchase certain products, specific spending habits and even personal demographics.
We do this to market more effectively to customers who match the predictive characteristics of people who tend to buy our products.
This information is readily available, just as credit information is readily available to institutions that offer financial services. Perhaps privacy, as we believe it to be, is an illusion.
But I wonder what would happen if this information were not available. Think about the consequences of extending credit without proper checks.
I look at the information we obtain on our customers - people who have already engaged in some sort of transaction with us. The question is whether our ability to service them would be inhibited if we did not obtain this information, which could lead to dissatisfied customers and reduced profits.
Customers give off mixed signals about what they expect businesses to know about them. Data consolidation and better information on consumers is a good thing as long as the information is used wisely and is properly secured and protected.
Greater transparency of information would allow customers to be better served, their healthcare to be better provided and their lives and status more secure.
Why not? There is a lot of information out there and if it was used more effectively wouldn't our lives be better and easier. Why should companies, healthcare services and the authorities have to guess?
Of course, there must be limits on this. Information sharing and data consolidation must be relevant to those using it.
Healthcare information, for example, should only be available to healthcare agencies and certified providers.
In that light ID cards don't seem such a bad idea - why should they be?
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Geraint
An article subtitled "What have we got to hide?" by an author using a pseudonym. Ahem.
"Do we have something to hide? There are benefits to this sharing. After all, security is a growing concern"
OK, I'll bite ... what benefits to the public does government data sharing bring and how might reducing protection against data sharing enhance our security?
2. Simon
Hey - speak for yourself !
"The buying public assume businesses know their preferences and more importantly their dislikes or bad experiences."
I don't. I don't expect ANY business to keep more information than they need to in order to process my requests. I know they all do keep more, but that's another matter ...
For example, if I want to buy something, I'll ask someone to supply it - when I want to buy it. If I don't want to buy something, or don't want to buy it now, then I don't want someone trying to sell it to me. So given that, what more do you need to know than a) who I am so you can invoice me and deliver the goods, and b) how I pay you ?
You don't need to know how many brothers, sisters, cats, dogs, gerbils, whatever I have. You don't need to know if I prefer heavy rock or classical. You don't need to know if I enjoy a good steak or are vegetarian (except perhaps if you are food retailer and I tick a box telling you so that you can filter the products displayed on your website).
You don't need to know how many mobile companies/networks have p***ed me off in the past. If you aren't a mobile network then you don't have any reason to know, and if you are a mobile network, then you still don't need to know (you can assume it's several) as all you need to be bothered with is not p***ing me off now you spend all that marketing money on gaining my custom. Not p***ing me off now doesn't require any special knowledge about me - all it takes is simple 'old fashioned' customer service, you know, where the customer is treated like they are important to the business rather than something to be tolerated !
So put simply, there are no reasons for you (or any other company) to be storing ever more information about me. Most of the arguments for 'more data' usually follow some pre-condition that you are going to try and 'sell me stuff' that I probably don't want anyway.
3. Karen Challinor
I am not a criminal, so why do my fingerprints need to go into a database which will be regularly trawled and compared against those from scenes of crimes
we've already seen from articles on S.C that using fingerprints as a general form of identification can be problematic and I've still not seen any independent study of error rates for fingerprint recognition
now businesses collect details but there are laws governing how they can be used and they don't collect everything, they don't know where I've been or what I've bought in the past 24 hours for example
when government collects data, it is still protected by law but as it's the lawmaker doing the collecting these particular goalposts can be moved pretty much at will, further not only will they know where I've been and what I've bought for the past 24 hours but for the past 24 years
you say "After all, security is a growing concern and the ability for, say, healthcare professionals to diagnose and cure patients has to be positive, right"
absolutely right healthcare professionals sharing data with other healthcare professionals is fine and dandy and can be achieved by managing existing NHS information within the NHS, there's no need whatsoever to share this with anyone else
as for security how exactly will having the full life details of me, a law abiding subject of the crown, help you in the fight against terrorism or crime ?
when you are trying to find a needle in a haystack the last thing you need is more hay
all these arguments for increasing state intrusion and monitoring of the people have been knocked down, so I ask you, why do you need to know
4. MusicFan
How can a life be more secure if its every move can be tracked and predicted. Just think of the potential for exploitation and robbery. Scary!
If The Naked CIO thinks it is better for everyone if all our information was "transparent", then surely he/she also thinks that our government losing his/her personal data is a good thing?
:-)
5. anonymous
Having read the article and Karens' response I would have to agree with her wholeheartedly. More data creates an obfuscation of the purpose of the need to collect data.
Perhaps collecting more data on the career criminals can be justified and those that support their activities either by act or omission.