Ketch’s experts highlight four key principles behind strong data stewardship:
- Data minimisation – only capture the necessary data
- Full transparency – provide consumers with visibility of where their data resides and who can access it
- Data sharing – let consumers know if and how data will be shared across brands and partners, and limit sharing if requested
- Data retention periods – verify how long data needs to be retained and delete it across all systems when this time period is up.
“Balancing all four factors is essential to complying with consumer demands, as well as legislation in many countries,” explains Howe. “But it’s not always straightforward.”
While smaller organisations may struggle with a lack of resources to manually manage data in accordance with requirements, larger enterprises have legacy IT debt to contend with. Over time, consumer data may have been distributed across numerous systems with little centralised knowledge of where data currently resides.
“We’re seeing a growing awareness of data privacy concerns among our customers, but up until now, it’s been difficult for brands to know how to address these challenges,” confirms Robbert van Ooljen, Team Lead and Senior Solution Architect at Wunderman Thompson. “Addressing consumer requests in line with compliance requirements – for example for their data to be deleted – often requires complex and lengthy processes across legal, data protection, and IT departments, taking up hours of time and effort.”
