Dive Brief:
- Data is the new currency, making consumers' willingness to share it more valuable than ever. However only 25% of consumers feel secure or extremely secure from identity theft because of data breaches, according to an Oxford Economics and NTT DATA survey of 500 executives and 5,000 international consumers regarding the future of data. Consumers' confidence in personal safety and political integrity is also low following a breach.
- For companies, 90% of executives agree data is critical to overall financial performance, with companies in telecom and financial services deeming it the most important. Companies in these sectors "tend to be more confident" in what they extract from data collection, according to the report.
- Companies recognized as "data leaders" have a solid grasp of international data regulations. About 93% of data leaders understand the types of data they share versus 74% of other businesses. Leaders are also more likely to have a plan to make use of collected data.
Dive Insight:
The last year has been a reckoning for companies expected to disclose data breaches. Otherwise they face legal ramifications and marred reputations.
Fewer than one-fourth of consumers say they are mostly or completely confident in the protection of their personally identifiable information (PII) from companies, according to the report. It's easy for companies to take advantage of consumer data when it is often freely offered up on the internet, but companies need to realize that data belongs to consumers first.
At the same time, consumers demanding privacy are the ones sharing information freely. Companies that collect and benefit from consumer data sharing still need clear policies outlining how data is used.
Regulation will also help companies better unlock the potential of their data because only about half actually put it to use. Collecting unnecessary data stands as a risk and potential liability if a breach were to occur.
Opting-in and data retrieval requests are now the norms in a GDPR world. Though the U.S. has yet to adopt a nationwide version of the EU regulation, some states have taken it upon themselves to implement legislation.
California signed its data privacy bill into law this summer. Big tech responded by lobbying Washington for a federal law to overrule California's law. Deeming its language too harsh, big tech is hoping to have a hand in the structure of a federal law.