Good data governance is good business

Trust is the real currency of the digital economy, according to Katryna Dow, founder and CEO of life management firm Meeco.

“In the wake of massive data breaches at companies like Facebook and Equifax and in the light of regulations such as the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] or open banking, we are at a crossroads around three points of tension,” she told Computer Weekly.

First is regulation or compliance regarding consumer data protection, said Dow. Second is tension around commercial models, which are in flux because of problems created by the way data has been traded, has not been secured well, and the lack of liability. Third, there is tension around the emerging technologies that are enabling new business models.

“We need to move away from ‘digitised’ to ‘digital’ because a lot of companies have been focused on digitising their processes instead of making them truly digital,” she said. “In an attempt to create a digital channel, they are doing things like putting forms online, instead of thinking about tokenising identity, access, authentication and authorisation, as well as about how to remove friction and improve compliance.”

As a result, there are some new roles that are emerging in the ecosystem, said Dow. “There is more and more need for a relying party to feel that they can trust where the data is coming from, trust its provenance, and trust who is supplying it and who is vouching for it.”

With the explosion of internet-connected devices making up the internet of things, Dow said there are now many more things to trust, authenticate and authorise.

“We need to get the utility layer right around consent, otherwise it becomes just another bad cookie policy,” she said. “In addition, we desperately need better governance and transparency around how data is collected and protected.”

Against a background of changes in the digital landscape, such as blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies becoming more mainstream, organisations are being forced to start thinking about new models, said Dow.

“In this context, the hallmark of anything that is futureproof – be it a society or company – is going to be the willingness to share the data that it collects about its people for mutual value,” she said.

In response, said Dow, Meeco is focusing on four big problems that need to be solved – compliance, cost, consent and collaboration.

“The problem of cost includes the rising cost of bad data, which is estimated to cost $3tn a year in the US alone, and the cost of data breaches,” she said. “And when it comes to consent, the problem is that, in many cases, people do not really understand what they are agreeing to.”

Collaboration is an area of particular focus for Meeco, said Dow, because the future of data and identity will enable personalisation of services, but that potential will not be realised without a solid foundation of trust in the digital world.

“The future of personalisation can only happen if we can land on a trusted ecosystem – the ability for people to bring data from different bits of their lives to enable integrated personalised experiences that are underpinned by identity, authentication and authorisation, and where each contributing service provider manages that data appropriately,” she said.

But Dow warned that unless service providers start thinking about how to approach identity and access management to unlock that potential, they will miss a “huge opportunity for innovation”.