Data analytics, innovation and privacy: who wins?

Data is one of the most valuable assets of any organization. It is the fuel—the oxygen—of modern business, and we are creating it at an astounding rate. Every 2 days, we produce as much new data as the world produced from the start of civilization until 2003. Every two days! The result of this evolution? The era of “big data.”

Understandably, organizations are keen to unlock big data’s potential for its business value. Data analytics enables organizations to make connections, identify patterns, predict behaviour and personalize interactions in ways never envisioned until now. As a result, data analytics is accelerating the pace of innovation and disrupting traditional business models.

Big data can reveal personal details

But big data also has some potential drawbacks — especially the risk to privacy. The biggest challenge is the risk of creating automatic data linkages between seemingly non-identifiable data to paint a broad portrait of an individual. In other words, by connecting several types of information that are on their own innocuous, big data can reveal personal details about people, their lifestyle and habits.

Regulators, legislators, interest groups and citizens have begun to voice concerns about the impact of big data on privacy—from the misuse or unauthorized disclosure of personal information to data-based surveillance.

Through careful planning and application of privacy techniques and principles, like Privacy by Design, organizations can use data to drive innovation while at the same time protecting personal information.

It is possible to have it all.