Data Privacy and Ethics in Business

Privacy is terms of protecting data is imperative and with time it is becoming more complex due to the progress made in technology, expansion and changing needs of businesses. Whenever a company gathers the personal data of an individual, ethically it’s their responsibility not to reveal it. Company has to keep their confidential information secure, as customer-business relationship is based on mutual trust and legally they will be accountable if they breach those terms. Preserving the privacy, maintaining ethics and granting security to all the stakeholders are things that are interlinked and form the basic structure for businesses. Violation of any of these means breaking the law which can ruin the relationship and create an unbridgeable gap between the two parties. To avoid these unpleasantries and going up along the tangled path, it is important to stick to a firm privacy and security framework that is based upon ethical grounds.

Information and data collection have their pros and cons. The silver lining is that it gives you a deeper insight of your customers, results in fair trading, communication becomes faster and effective, and ensures transparency in business dealings. The shortcomings are that it is risky when you entrust your staff and vendors with sensitive data to make ethical decisions since companies are prone to cyber-attacks. Data losses or leakage can result in legal implications, break the trust of customers, businesses can lose their credibility and they may face financial downturns.

Below are some practices that businesses can follow to ensure that they correctly adhering to the principles of privacy and staying within the realm of ethics. These will also help them to mitigate the aforementioned drawbacks.

1. Devise a Code of Ethics: All begins from developing and setting a tone within the organization's culture. Training and guiding the employees regarding the policies and procedure is the first step towards building digital trust within and beyond the organization. For this they must keep in mind that they respect the individual behind the data since they are there to serve them. Privacy and security officials must have a clear knowledge of what is expected from them. Unnecessary data that is of no use for the company must not be collected from people. They must adopt a farsighted approach (as to what can happen in future) while utilizing the data and using the analytical tools. Side by side, they should know the way they have used the data in the past and make improvements accordingly. In short, the whole plan should be based on accountability, clarity and auditability.

2. Adopting Ethical Technology: While investing and introducing automation in various business processes, make sure to do proper planning and see how customer will react to certain marketing techniques that you will adopt. For example by knowing the zip code of an individual and keeping in mind how the algorithms regard the inputs, you can do target marketing and focus on specific customer niche in a way that satisfies them. 

3. Take prior consent for data collection and sharing: During the process of data collection and sharing it is essential for companies to get a detailed and informed consent from the individual. As the information is passed on from one department to another a lot changes and becomes different from the context in which the individual gave approval and consent. Proper guidelines and practices must be followed before the disclosure, sharing and manipulation of data to mitigate risks and potential harm. Strong ethical initiatives prevents the non-consensual data sharing and data cannot be misused by those parties who are not given access.

Much of a company's success and reputation depends on the way it uses the data of customers. Customers’ value and demand trust from companies. Using the data ethically and prioritizing consumer/customers privacy, organization's profits can surge as they will gain loyal customers and stakeholder will trust them more.