To mark the European Cyber Security Month, Statice is meeting industry leaders across Europe to discuss the latest trends in data privacy, as well as the greatest challenges corporations are facing in the provision of data-driven products and services to consumers.

A universal recognition of the privacy of personal information as a human right has been around since before the 1950s, but it is not until digitalization came along and people’s lives started shifting from a physical world into a digital one, that we have seen a global wave of privacy violations against individuals when data protection is not being appropriately enforced or cybersecurity is threatened. People need to be protected online, just like in real life.

Following recent discussions we had with industry leaders such as Barclays, Amazon Web Services and Lloyds, our main takeaway was that there is a sense of urgency for better data strategies across industries. Companies are tired of roadblocks such as restrictive regulatory systems, information silos and slow internal data processing. Instead, there is a need to develop sustainable data strategies with respect to consumers’ privacy and rights.

Data privacy is not just good business - it’s a new global standard

The AI industry is growing, with new technologies reaching the market and traditional corporations becoming more innovative. Artificial intelligence is enabled by machine learning, which is often fuelled by personal data. It can be used for predictable analysis and even decision making. The advancement of improved products and services largely have machine learning practices to thank for. In order to train machine learning models, however, corporations and organizations are relying on sensitive data. Foreseeing the potential risks, the British Government’s Officer for AI recently published some guidelines that urge organisations to take ethical factors into account before using AI applications. At Statice, we believe that privacy is a cornerstone of ethics in AI. The more technology is interlinked with human lives, it is crucial to see initiatives that preserve human rights, integrity and privacy of human beings. We have previously written about the ethics of AI in a post here.

While regulatory frameworks such as the GDPR are demanding that privacy-preserving methods become an integral part of corporate data strategies, we see how corporations are struggling to find the balance between innovation and legal compliance. It doesn't have to be a choice. Legally compliant solutions that at the same time offer full data insights that businesses need for product development and training machine learning do exist.

Data privacy laws are on the rise globally as well. In the US, the most comprehensive data privacy regulation, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), was signed into law in 2018, and goes into effect on January 1, 2020. Other countries are following suit, with national data protection laws that will come into effect next year in countries like Brazil and Thailand.

There is only one way forward

We believe that businesses can benefit immensely from modernizing the way they work with data. In a fast evolving world, consumers are asking for better products and services, and it is up to corporations to meet this demand. At the same time, data privacy is becoming increasingly important, as more digitalization in society means more sensitive data. Innovation only goes in one direction, and going forward we can only see the data trail growing larger. This calls for more robust data protection solutions, provided by the companies offering these services. We are happy that our solutions are enabling businesses to stay innovative.

To read more about how Statice can help your business stay at the forefront of future trends and innovation, visit our website here.

Statice are exhibiting on stand 853 at Big Data LDN 2019.