Why is the concern growing for privacy and who really cares?

The FINANCIAL — As more people across the globe are engaged with marketers and their products and services via the mobile and the digital world, more personal information is being collected both directly and indirectly or passively.

As a result, digital privacy and related security issues are growing in importance across Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, according to ESOMAR.

Last November, IPSOS released survey results of the growing concern with digital privacy amongst internet users in Asia Pacific region indicative of this concern.

The survey reported that the willingness of internet users to share their personal data with companies online varied by countries but even in those where the concern was lower, it was still a significant number of internet users, like in Australia where concern was at 54%.

This lower concern in a country such as Australia is a reflection of a country where there is well established legislation on privacy and data protection. Australia was one of the first countries in the region to enact Data Protection and Privacy legislation impacting Direct Marketing and Social and Media Research, based on Privacy Act 1988 and implemented as specific privacy principles in 2003.

Back in the early 2000’s the local Market and Social Research Industry in Australia was faced with complying to more stringent rules and regulations aligned with direct marketing.

It did however establish with the government legislators at the time that it already had its own quality control assurance and best practice compliance with key areas to protect respondent’s privacy and confidentiality. This helped the Industry to get its own self- regulated Privacy Principles and stopped any confusing or blurring with direct marketing which was given more stringent regulations to comply with around data protection and privacy.

Similar legislation on data protection and data privacy has been enacted across many countries in the region and the local social and research industries have been able with good support and co-operation from other countries to follow the lead in Australia and lobby to ensure we have our own data protection and privacy practices that don’t impact how we conducted good quality research..

This is a significant quality assurance and hygiene factor for the Industry to keep maintaining and to set it apart from other activities where the general public provide their personal information.

Indirectly, this is one of a number of key factors underpinning the ongoing reputation of social and market research.

Any marketer will attest to how important reputation is with Asian consumers and how much they respect quality and how quickly a product or service can be affected by a poor experience or loss of face.

More importantly, the Industry relies on the ongoing co-operation of the general public to take part in research and if it were to loss face then it would be very hard to recover.

To date this has been managed with good standards and practices and while response rates have continued to be challenged they have not been affected overtly by concerns with privacy and data protection.

Which is all well and good as most engagement has been via more traditional methodologies such as face to face, but is becoming harder and more complex with the evolving mobile and digital world and how surveys are conducted via the internet and or mobile devices.

There is a real concern with growing day to day digital world, mobile marketing and related activities that consumers (respondents) will become more concerned with their privacy and having their data protected and won’t appreciate how social and market research is better at protecting and respecting personal privacy.

What is going to differentiate market researchers from players like Google who say that gmail users have no expectation of privacy ?

To ensure the Social and Market Research Industry keeps ahead and proactive in addressing any concerns with Data Protection, ESOMAR has developed a set of guidelines and best practice across Data Protection and Data Privacy. These guidelines need to be followed in line with individual countries own privacy legislation and any local Social and Market Research Quality Assurance.