Privacy Systems Design
“Privacy is not something I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.”
— Marlon Brando
What is Privacy and Information Privacy?
Broadly speaking, privacy is the right to be let alone, or the freedom from interference or intrusion.
Information privacy is the right to have some control over how your personal information is collected and used.
As technological innovations happen at a rapid pace, information privacy is becoming increasingly complex with every passing second as more data is being collected and exchanged.
The prowess of personalization at scale enabled by machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms have brought to light unethical, invasive, creepy and in some cases even illegal and malicious applications by using data collected from users.
This leaves an organization facing an incredibly complex risk matrix for ensuring personal information is protected and leveraged appropriately.
Privacy is a consumer protection issue, if not citizen protection concern in the global information ecosystem we live in.
To summarize, data privacy is focused on the use and governance of personal data, things like putting policies in place to ensure that consumers personal information is collected, shared and used in appropriate ways.
Privacy will be an increasingly differentiating factor for companies as users have increased awareness to their rights.
User Information and Data Journey
Below is a simplified journey of the data.
The first diagram shows how along with price of the product, the customer also provides information. For instance, First & Last Name, Phone number, Address, Payment information.
Along with this, user activity is also traced to gain insight into their decision making process.
The second and third diagram, we see how a company relies on the information to provide value and draw additional insight into the user.
Privacy Laws and what they require?
New privacy laws like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and various other state legislations require companies to provide visibility into the data processing activities a company leverages.
As you can imagine, the volume of data paired with complicated business processes make this a challenge.
Additionally, C-suite executives and senior leaders need credible information to make strategic business decisions.
That’s where I come in!
I coordinate with different teams across the enterprise and design systems to ensure that the right people, have the right information, at the right time to remediate privacy risks and keep loss within the companies risk appetite.
