You couldn’t walk three feet without hearing this buzzword at SXSW: Privacy. Its tentacles were far-reaching and a main stream of core conversations in Austin.
Discussions ranged from Internet data, hacking, NSA data leaks via Snowden and services such as Wikileaks to new healthcare devices and how privacy can impact targeted marketing services.
What resonated with me was the basic principle of how data is transmitted and stored.
Data is a fundamental part of the Internet and the tools we use, but is the Internet truly free? From what we all found out, we pay for ease of use and free services with our personal data, but we just didn’t realize how expensive and far reaching that decision can be.
Most of the communications services we all use everyday are tools provided by marketing companies. They offer relevancy by skimming our communications to provide a better and more targeted experience for us as users. Advertising, recommended stories or products based on the content of our emails, makes communications more relevant.
If you are highly engaged with a brand, you may view that experience as beneficial and it can help to foster a sense of affinity. However, when data targeting is used by brands we haven’t expressed affinity with, it can very easily be perceived as creepy. It is a fine line to walk as marketers, and most likely, this is the first awareness of how our personal usage and privacy data is being consumed.
The free tools we rely on daily are based on a partially open framework. There is no person-to-person encryption as a default between yourself and the person you are sending your message to. This enables advertising and personalised experiences, which is our payment for using these free tools. However, it currently leaves open the possibility of our data being monitored in ways we don’t expect or at a scale we can’t even comprehend.
So what is the solution? Per Edward Snowden, one of the keynote speakers, the solution is an adoption of end-to-end security data protocols built into free services that will, at your request, shut down the man and service in the middle based on what value you perceive that service has to you.
“End-to-end encryption makes surveillance impossible at the network level…There is a policy response that needs to occur. There is also a technical response that needs to occur. It is the development community that can really craft the solutions and make sure we are safe.” – Edward Snowden
This in itself is a Catch-22. Our free tools require the data shared to fund the platforms we use. In a way the real decision we have to make is: Is free and easy worth access to our data? Or do we embrace the importance of protecting our private data, knowing these platforms may be more complex, difficult and expensive to use? That is something everyone has to decide on his or her own.
What we do know is that more personal data is being captured and monitored daily. Soon, capacity and processing power won’t hinder the ability to have information on everyone in the world. If something doesn’t change at the core/code of how we communicate, all of our information will be assimilated into the large ether being collected worldwide and will be very hard to remove ourselves from.
What does that mean for the future?
Corporations are taking this very seriously. We hope to hear about revised encryption standards that will allow them to offer services in a way that doesn’t risk your privacy but still allows them to make money.
My prediction? The next must-have job in our industry will be the Information Security Data Specialist whose job will be to make your digital footprint invisible. Just expect that to come at a cost to your wallet and convenience. Maybe that will be the next new Luxury: true data invisibility.
–Dawn Smith is a Digital Council Chair at JWT London. Follow her on Twitter at @nytsiren.