Commercial Intimacy

Data Collection and Commercial Intimacy

The deployment of information and communication technology in our lives creates huge amounts of data about our movements, preferences, health, wealth, habits and more. Much of this data is collected and stored sometimes with, and sometimes without our consent. Much of the data collected is used by various organisations to better tune the products and services they offer to us. The potential to collect data will increase over time as technology becomes both more capacious and ever-present. This will make it more and more possible for organisations to use that data to more and more personalise their offers and their service.

Before this can develop to a stage that makes truly individual service the norm, issues of data ownership and access will need to be resolved. For commercial intimacy to be realised in all its glory and potency the data used to personalise the engagement will need to be of a depth and intimacy best gathered with consent.

Equally the organisations most likely to gain that consent and the consequent access to powerful personal data are those who have earned the trust that consent is based on.