Businesses are collecting and processing more and more personal information.  Given the broad definition of personal information, the collection and combination of demographic and behavioral data from multiple sources can result in the identification of individuals and therefore is regulated by data protection laws.  Companies use this information for many reasons, to build customer profiles, store repeated behavior, forecast future behavior, reduce fraud, and errors.  Data protection and privacy concerns arise whenever personal information is collected and stored or processed, even to create a broad base marketing behavioral analyses.

The ease of collection, storing and processing data creates tremendous opportunities for businesses.  For example, a customer makes an online purchase of boating equipment, the company will have collected not just personal identification, but now knows the customer is a boater and can use that information for future marketing.  Amazon collects a tremendous amount of information from its e-readers.  The information collected can determine the types of books the customer is reading, whether they scan the book, jump to the end or never finish it.  With this information Amazon thinks they can predict what you will read next and market appropriately.

The question is whether the company is properly informing the customer about how it will store and use the personal information.  Blanket permission for a use of personal information may not be sufficient any longer.  Some data protection laws require consent be obtained for each use and re-use of personal information.  This imposes a significant burden on the use of personal information for the purposes of producing useful data analytics particularly where the personal information is anonymous.  Nevertheless, personal information obtained from multiple sources can be used to identify an individual and is therefore regulated.

Consumer analytics are often used by various different companies and departments and therefore, when using consumer analytics, even so called “anonymous” data, sound training and education regarding date protection laws is essential.

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