Apple, Sony and the Future of Personal Data - Uwe Hook

The iPhone knows its location and stores that information in a file Apple denied this claim called users confused and the problem a bugSony admitted last week that hackers had obtained Play Station Network user names addresses email addresses birth dates passwords and IDsOh and a few days later Sony admitted to a second security breach that may have resulted in the theft of personal information of 246 million Sony Online Entertainment SOE customers This includes 12700 nonUS credit or debit card numbers and 10700 direct debt recordsThis is not about bashing Sony andor Apple There are bigger issues at hand hereThe core issue is informed consent which is a byproduct of basic respect and empathy for customers Most companies are lacking these important principles 30 free days added to their subscription by Sony is just not good enough Customers should be offered free credit reports and subscriptions to identity theft protection services A few friends of mine had to deal with identity theft and I can assure you 30 days of free service wouldn39t make up for the time they had to waste cleaning up their recordConsumers will put up with a lot from brands they like and do business with so long as they are told what the brands wants to do in nonmarketing and nontechnical speak and they are given the opportunity to chooseApple didn39t provide any opportunity to optin for storage of location data no choice was ever given Sony didn39t do enough to ensure the anonymity and privacy of their users they didn39t even encrypt personal dataLawyers will point to the enduser license agreement and TOS but the relationship between a brand and a person is much more than a legal contract Nobody reads these documents we just scroll down to mark the checkbox and get on with it They protect the legal structure of an enterprise but they don39t do anything for customers Sony and Apple just like other enterprises that collect data don39t put clear verbiage in front of people and give them real options And yes the option to selectively enable and disable data collection and sharing should be includedSony had good reasons to collect customer data It provides them the opportunity to sell more products by delivering relevant messages at an opportune time That39s fine as long as the customer can make a risk assessment Is a 5 coupon worth the risk of identity theftTrust in data security is erodingThis is only the beginning of the end of personal data collection by enterprises Almost every day we read about examples of companies abusing the ownership of our personal data This massive crisis might force Sony into opening their data systems to independent external auditors letting them access the source code of the implementation and validating that data is secured and used in a way consistent with the privacy criteria both parties agreed on They will have to change their communication with customers to make it more human less legal and transparentWill it be enoughIn the shortterm those measures should help the gain the trust of their most avid customers In the longterm more breaches in different verticals will become public and customers will finally see that their data is being treated recklessly and without any respectUltimately enterprises have to deal with this realityPeople will understand their personal data has more value than a quot1 offquot coupon They will refuse to give enterprises longterm access to their data Instead they will allow them to access their data for a limited amount of time in exchange for a real value proposition People have given the key to brands too many times just to get a wrecked car in return It39s about time they demand the key backUwe Hook is the CEO and CoFounder of BatesHook Inc wwwbateshookcom and a veteran of the advertising and marketing industry with the goal of building connections between people and brands Uwe can be reached at uwebateshookcomRead all Uwe39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at SubversionsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerMediaBizBloggers is an openthought leadership blog platform for media marketing and advertising professionals companies and organizations To contribute contact Jackmediadvisorygroupcom The opinions expressed in MediaBizBloggerscom are not those of Media Advisory Group its employees or other MediaBizBloggerscom contributors Media Advisory Group accepts no responsibility for the views of MediaBizBloggers authors

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Apple, Sony and the Future of Personal Data - Uwe Hook

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