Creating a Culture of Data Privacy & Protection (An Excerpt) It fascinates us how few data audit teams we run into, regardless of company size or data asset library depth. Everyone is accustomed to financial audits; the very same principles can be put to work for your data strategy to monitor intrinsic and extrinsic data… Read More
This week, a data privacy app called Jumbo launched and is designed to manage complex privacy settings across a number of platforms including Google, Facebook, Amazon (Alexa), and Twitter. But will it get blocked by Big Tech? Read More
When evaluating your marketing ROI, you should decide whether location tracking and other creepy marketing methods are really worth the risk. Read More
What Zork can teach us about Google, Amazon, and Apple’s Commitment to Data Privacy. Data Privacy gets a lot of lip service these days. We have Apple declaring that they bake privacy into every product, Google deciding to delete millions of Google+ accounts (there were millions?) because of a coding bug that potentially exposed private… Read More
Data is amazing. You know that already. You’re told it every moment of every day. We are literally told or shown by ESPN, our kids report cards, our treadmills, our wristwatch, our Alexa, our Google, our Siri, our phones, and our apps that data is here and has the answer. In some cases this is… Read More
This week I completed a book by Shoshana Zuboff that my brother, James, had pointed me toward. I had also recently completed two other books that have been on my list for quite some time. The timing of each of these books and their futurist warning, deep research, and outstanding storytelling caused a flurry of… Read More
Speaking last week on an industry panel, I advised the audience of digital marketing professionals to “Stop doing creepy things with your data and your customers’ data.” To which I was told by the moderator, “Well, ‘creepy’ is a little subjective, though, isn’t it?” “You know it when you see it,” I replied. About five… Read More
We’ve always loved Venn diagrams. They have a simple way of illuminating potential connections, overlaps, and combinations. They also can be quite funny. Sometimes Venn diagrams show obvious relationships, but other times, they can be used to highlight an odd overlap from seemingly unrelated stories or concepts. This last week, three stories and articles came… Read More
I have to apologize. For the next 27 days, I will be exceedingly annoying. I will post, re-post, and trumpet the release of my first book, Data Leverage, as I have seen countless other authors do on Twitter, Facebook, and here on LinkedIn. I will share the status, links, reviews, and posts from the book for… Read More
Yext throws probably the most compelling conference in digital knowledge. Heck, it’s probably the best conference in New York this year. With headliners like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Hannah Fry, and David Blaine, there was some solid star power that captured the essence of the conference: Knowledge is Power. On day two, we had the opportunity… Read More
Step one: don’t delegate it to the intern in the IT department. Building a solid Privacy Team inside of your company can be challenging, particularly when no one understands why you are doing it. In this episode of “Are You DataSmart?”, the Ward brothers outline proven approaches to building a Data Privacy Team and how… Read More
The ballot initiative was pulled, the law was passed. But will the California Consumer Privacy Act (CaCPA) move forward to be one of the most significant steps in data privacy law or will the law be watered down through the revision process. This is a big test to see how California handles data privacy and… Read More
The opportunities for Artificial Intelligence to transform humanity are enormous. We are seriously excited. However, there are issues with amassing the amount of data necessary for these machine learning based solutions. To become “intelligent” (whether artificially or not) requires immense data and knowledge, and the ability to recall that knowledge. Data Minimization, as a concept,… Read More
Well, it has been a little more than 90 days since the GDPR “went live”. In this episode of “Are You DataSmart?” the Ward brothers break down the initial global response to GDPR, the rise and fall of DSARs, and two other issues that will be critical to watch as GDPR continues to re-shape the… Read More
In this episode of the “Are You DataSmart?” podcast, the Ward brothers discuss the first court ruling on GDPR that went against ICANN, the non-profit domains platform that powers the internet. What is so fascinating about this first decision is that it specifically puts “data minimization” on display. It isn’t a theory anymore! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT… Read More
In this episode of “Are You DataSmart?” we examine the Supreme Court’s most important ruling on privacy in Carpenter v. United States. It is a major development in privacy law, laying the foundation for an interpretation of the Fourth Amendment that protects against generalized government surveillance by electronic means. Together with United States v. Jones, it brings… Read More
Episode 16 of the “Are You DataSmart” Podcast covers the major operational issues caused Article 17 of the GDPR, Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’). Deleting records causes amnesia-like symptoms for businesses and will afflict every business that receives a withdrawal of consent or a notice to erase data about an individual or data subject. Specifically: The… Read More
GDPR allows for the deletion of all data on a subject. This creates a long and short term memory loss problem, similar to amnesia that equates to the data immediately re-appearing in the company’s data base. Read More
The race is on! California jumped to an early lead to get the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA 2018) onto their November ballot, but look out! Here comes Vermont, from out of nowhere, to try to be the first State with a GDPR-like law on the books. In this episode of the Are You DataSmart?… Read More
The three pillars of GDPR are transparency, security, and consistency. Regulators have stated they see transparency as the central point, but the other two are equally important. When a natural person asks your company for a Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR), how will you react? The Ward brothers explain what companies need to expect within… Read More