Data Privacy: It’s not an all or nothing!

Recently I have been exploring the world of “self quantification”, using tools like Jawbone UP, Runkeeper, Withings and more to measure, well, myself. Living in a tech-y city like Boston, I’ve also had a chance to attend Quantified Self Meet Ups and discuss these topics with others.

In a recent post, I discussed the implications of a movement like self quantification on marketing and privacy. However, it’s easy for such conversations to to stay fairly simply, without necessarily addressing the fact that privacy is not an all or nothing: there are levels of privacy and individual permissions.

Let’s take self quantification as an example. On an on-going basis, the self quantification tools I use track:

• My every day movement (steps taken, as well as specific exercise activities)
• Additional details about running (distance, pace, elevation and more)
• Calorie intake and calorie burn
• Heart rate, both during exercise (via my Polar heart rate monitor or Tom Tom running watch) and standing resting heart rate (via my Withings scale)
• Weight, BMI and body fat
• Sleep (including duration and quality)

That’s a ton of data to create about myself every day!

Now think about the possible recipients of that data:

• Myself (private data)
• My social network (for example, my Jawbone UP “team” can see the majority of my data and comment or like activities, or I can share my running stats with my Facebook friends)
• Medical professionals like my primary care physician
• Researchers
• Corporations trying to market to me

It’s so easy to treat “privacy” as an all or nothing: I am either willing to share my data or I am not. However, consumers demand greater control over their privacy precisely because there are different things we’re willing to share with different groups, and even within a group, specific people or companies we’re willing to share with.

For example, I may be willing to share my data with my doctor, but not with corporations. Or I may be willing to share my data with Zappos and Nike, but not with other corporations. I may be willing to share my running routes with close friends but not my entire social network. I may be willing to share my data with researchers, but only if anonymised. I may be willing to share my activity and sleep data with my social network, but not my weight. (C’mon, I won’t even share that with the DMV!)

This isn’t a struggle just for self quantification data, but rather, a challenge the entire digital ecosystem is facing. The difficulty in dealing with privacy in our rapidly changing digital world is that we don’t just need to allow for a share/do not share model, but specific controls that address the nuance of privacy permissions. And the real challenge is managing to do so in a user-friendly way!

What should we do? While a comprehensive system to manage all digital privacy may be a ways off (if ever), companies can get ahead by at least allowing for customisation of privacy settings for their own interactions with consumers. For example, allowing users to opt out of certain kinds of emails, not just “subscribe or unsubscribe”, or providing feedback that which targeted display ads are unwelcome, or irrelevant. (And after you’ve built those customisation options, ask your dad or your grandma to use them to gauge complexity!)

Want to hear more? I have submitted to speak about these issues and more at SXSW next year. Voting closes EOD Sun 9/8, so if you’re interested in learning more, please vote for my session! http://bit.ly/mkiss-sxsw