Technology has allowed consumers to go to physical banks less frequently because they can access all their assets and investments easily online. It has made Blockbuster obsolete and spared them trips to the local movie theater because thousands of TV programs, films, and podcasts are available on the screens in their pockets and living rooms. Why, then, has technology not made it possible for consumers to access what so many companies have gotten rich by taking from consumers: our data?
We know that from the minute we pick up our phones in the morning, dozens of companies collect data on our behavior. Google and Facebook collect information to share with advertisers, who then use personal details such as our interests and identities to sell us goods running the gamut from home insurance to hair care products. Amazon leverages data to sell and develop its own goods. A vast range of companies track us even when we never directly visit their websites.
Why shouldn’t you be able to find out how many companies store information about you and what they know? Better yet, why shouldn’t you be able to tell them whether you want them to collect, share, or make money off your data? And why shouldn’t it be easy to take control of your data, which is your property, in much the same way you use technology to access and manage your finances?
If you can place trades for tens of thousands of dollars in securities in seconds on a smartphone, you should be able to access your data. The truth is that the tech industry has not gotten there yet because it has been in the interest of massive corporations to hide what they know about you. But access to your data is possible, and it’s on the way — if you want it.
The industry wisens up
Silicon Valley conglomerates and legislators are waking up to the reality that the status quo of data-driven business is not going to fly for much longer. Governments are passing legislation and influential companies are creating new policies to increase consumer control over our data.
Europe passed a data privacy law in 2018 that places limits on how companies collect and share consumer data. California passed a ballot resolution last year strengthening previous privacy legislation and empowering consumers to demand that companies stop selling their data. Virginia passed its own data privacy law earlier this year, and more state actions are sure to follow.
On the private side, Google said it would stop allowing companies to track you across the Web even when you’re not using their products, and Apple recently started companies to get explicit consumer consent before tracking them on the iPhone. Of course, there was immediate pushback to these changes. Advertising technology firms said Google’s changes would mark the end of the open and free Internet, and Facebook went into war mode, Apple’s changes would be the death of small business.