This is the advice of Jasen Meece, CEO of Cloudentity, who has been looking at the data issue from the perspective of both the company and the consumer. To gain some advice of how businesses should be approach Data Privacy Day 2021, Digital Journal caught up with Meece.
Meece begins outlining by bridging the space between the corporation and the individual, noting: “Data Privacy Day is an ideal time to build awareness and start an open dialogue about how individuals’ data is being leveraged by companies. It’s important to put the power of data back into consumers’ hands so they can decide how their data is being used and shared.”
He places this in the context of recent legsilation: “After the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) passed in November 2020, many other states and countries may follow suit in implementing data and privacy laws to give consumers control of their personal data. However, adhering to privacy standards can be challenging for companies, especially as applications become more complex with the addition of distributed services, APIs, and serverless resources all collecting and passing user data across environments.”
In terms of protecting consumer identity, Meece recommends: “When it comes to managing consumer identity, API Protection is a key leg of the identity stool, dictating how the app handles user data, identity governance and who has access to private data. Companies need to ensure that they request customer consent to access or use their private information required to deliver their services. Every user consent action and the contextual information needed to establish some form of identity needs to be captured to prove compliance with legislation and to respect the data privacy of their customers.”
Looking at his own company’s offering, Meece says: “Cloudentity’s Privacy Ledger, part of our Authorization Control Plane, captures all the necessary information to all for progressive consent and enables consumers to understand exactly why they consented, what they consented to, when they consented to it, and what is collected. Thereby empowering the consumer to take control of their data privacy. This approach builds trust and loyalty with the brand while ensuring companies remain compliant with the latest data privacy legislation.”
