Can consumers of digital natives outsource their responsibility towards digital literacy and data vigilance?
Just over this weekend, I ordered in some food for a party I hosted at home. To the app, I provided my name, mobile phone number and my residential address. The food was delicious and the party even better! I also bought my daughter a pair of shoes at a brand retailer, black and silver if you insist on knowing, and when at the time of billing he asked me, without a care I happily provided him with my name, mobile phone number (again) and my email id. Just so that he could let me about the next sale preview, open only to “loyal” customers. When I subsequently hopped across to a chemist to buy some medicines, just as I was asked, I more time and without a care in the world, I provided my name, mobile phone number (yet again) and the name of my doctor before the invoice was raised. With my details with him, he said that the next time I needn’t drive to the store to pick up the medicines and that he would more than happily get them delivered at my door steps, that too within the hour!
Next day, with the weather being perfect for a swim, I decided to search out my swimming trunks for their first session in our newly redone pool. When I realized that I couldn’t find them, I happily ordered them at a marketplace and courtesy my “prime” membership, they were delivered home within the next couple of hours. If that wasn’t delightful I don’t know what could be. And as a result, the ever so inviting swimming pool is where I spent most part of my evening. And the last important thing I did this weekend was to finalize my holiday itinerary for our summer vacations with my friends abroad. Over a couple of video calls and some emails that went back and forth, the detailed, day-wise schedule was prepared, g-mailed for common confirmation and the flight tickets booked!
When I look back at the weekend, it was a perfect one. One well spent with friends, family, great food, amidst lots of laughter, at the swimming pool and one, where I also finally found the time to plan our next overseas holiday – something that I had been procrastinating about for a while. It is this kind of a happy weekend that I would wish for everyone – especially if you are living in sweltering heat that has now come to descend on most of north India!
But then, came the other realization – when before hitting the bed, I saw the playback of the US congressional hearings that were being played out on some international news channel, almost in a loop. And a stark, almost dark realization at that! Amongst everything that I had done with different sets of people, I had given out my name, mobile phone number, residential address (and therefore the profile of where I live), my food preferences, the fact that I have a daughter, her shoe size, my interest in swimming (never mind the added info on the size of the trunks I bought), my credit card details, holiday plan which spelled the number of days, my interest in certain kind of destinations (and by default, my financial capability to afford one) while I was gmail-ing this to friends etc etc and etc. And the worst part is that I did divulge all of this without having a care in the world, will perhaps continue to do so equal nonchalance in the future as well.
Now that made me think. Many things. For starters, that I wasn’t alone – certainly not the only dumb one! Almost all people in my acquaintance ordered in food on the weekends, had groceries home delivered, partied, swam and placed orders online across market places and apps. Holiday plans or not, my acquaintances always emailed and made video calls to friends, family and then some more. In the process, not just I but a lot of people I could think of would have shared many details, personal or otherwise, to many merchants which were shared even without thinking about (forget clicking on the now notoriously famous “I agree” tab) whether these individual pieces of information could ever be either shared or worst still, sold to other commercial entities that could now target me with a variety of “offers”.
The more I thought about this, the more (and to my horror) I realized that with my mobile phone number being the common unique data label, actually all pieces of data could be easily stitched together to create a rather accurate sociographic and psychographic profile of mine (and for millions of others) and which in turn could be sold to the highest bidder, were they need it to market their products or communication to me or alike.
After all, wasn’t this the perfect example of Big-Data led, rich customer profiling that many brands (including ones I work/ed for) sought when they reached out to various data analytics organizations with the demand for seeking rich customer insights including but not limited to buying behavior on new and potential audience groups? I don’t think at that time, barring some, most marketers more than ever so fleetingly asked for the “source” of the data that was being provided to them, and cross-checked whether and how ethically it was sourced?
Contrast that to the self-righteous indignation that now the same people (including people like me) are unleashing on a famous and hugely recognizable name (who by the way has a rather inspiring back-story which for the longest time was cited as proof of individual genius and intellect) that is today being interrogated for all the misdemeanors and wrong doings that his organization has committed.
No, not for a moment am I condoning the indiscretions committed by his organization. On the contrary, I believe that Transparency and Faith are 2 key pillars that need to be continuously strengthened for any brand as it grows in its Stature and Impact and 2 key values should be the ones that the brand is held accountable for. The only limited point I am making is that are we, both as custodians of the brands we manage and the ones we consume, being too overtly critical of another brand without taking adequate responsibility for our own behavior? While we must question the ethics of this large data-led organization, shouldn’t we at some level also equally question our own nonchalance with which we put out large parts of information about ourselves, out there and with other organisations who may not have even half of the data security measures that this one at least has? Or the other fundamental question on how do we plan to deal with the other large data-led organizations who too operate within our technology ecosystems and who perhaps know as much about us if not more without taking our explicit permission? What about organisations that run operating systems on the devises we are stuck to 24×7? Or the ones that run email services and who scrape through every sentence that is written and exchanged via their servers? And are we being oblivious to the threats from other smaller, dis aggregated organisations who collect data on us via their soft wares deployed multiple retail and other POS systems and which can be misused even more easily so given that they are too under the radar to be governed by any regulatory standards and / or bodies?
I had a lovely weekend and look forward to stepping into the next week with refreshed energy and vigor. That said, there is something for all us to think about on how much and how easily we share, happy to outsource all moral responsibility to those with whom we share.
Sorry Mark, I missed uploading any of my weekend moments on FB this weekend. But I will make up for it on the following one!
#BolderMarketing