transparency

Earlier this week, Intelius Chief Privacy Officer Jim Adler spoke at O’Reilly’s Strata Conference.  His talk, The Accidental Chief Privacy Officer (CPO), discussed how the industrial privacy professional is evolving from a compliance enforcer to a product innovator.  Here are the slides and interview with O’Reilly’s Alex Howard (@digiphile):

Jim Adler interviewed at Strata NY 2011

The key takeaway from the talk (see summary slide) is that the privacy pro is becoming a key evangelist for responsible innovation within fast-moving, high technology organizations. To be successful, four lessons:

1. Innovation is a team sport. Communication is key. So talk and (more importantly) listen to your toughest critics, both inside and outside your organization. They’ll better understand your perspective and you’ll often get great ideas.
2. Build a confluence of influence. Good decisions come from every corner of the business, early in the product cycle. Find the members of any team that are inventive, collaborative, and capable of creating the Reality Distortion Field (used so effectively by Steve Jobs) that’s so vital to disruptive innovation.
3. Be the happy warrior. Innovation, by definition, changes the status quo and makes some people uncomfortable. Engage with them in a constructive, respectful way inline with Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement.
4. Find clarity in the confusion. Use math, data, and history to find the clarity within the confusion. Privacy issues are especially difficult. As Jeff Jarvis points out in his new book, Public Parts, even defining privacy is a journey through an Escher maze. Jeff has a great, well referenced chapter on What Is Privacy? that illustrates the perennial struggle we all have navigating the privacy maze.
   
   The good news is that the privacy labyrinth can be traversed with sufficient situational assessment, data analysis, and historical perspective. Then, to remix metaphors, you can be that excited child in the room of manure who finds that elusive pony.

More from Jim Adler, Chief Privacy Officer at Intelius

Follow-up to post: Cutting Costs at the Expense of Privacy

The issue of online privacy has been an ongoing battle – companies have continued to develop methods to gather consumer data to maximize their advertising revenue in this $25 billion industry. Lawmakers finally unveiled their proposed bill to regulate privacy on the Internet. The recently drafted bill aims to protect consumer privacy and regulate how marketers are aggregating information about consumers. The legislation will require companies to disclose how they are collecting, using, and sharing personally identifying data. Consumers will also need to give consent before using more protected information, such as social security numbers, medical records and financial accounts. With this bill, the Federal Trade Commission hopes to create a more secure online environment.

Do you think these regulations will be enough to protect consumers?

You, the customer, are vital to us.  We have created the following Customer Bill of Rights as our pledge to you.

The Right to Transparency

You have the right to be provided accurate product information so you can make an intelligent and informed choice about whether to order a product from us. Product information presented by us will be complete, accurate, and up-to-date.

The Right to Satisfaction

You have the right to expect that our products fully meet our representation and explanation of them.  When it comes to any of our products, we say what we do and we do what we say.  If for any reason you are dissatisfied, you have the right to change or cancel our service and any request for a refund will be promptly, fairly and reasonably addressed.

The Right to Customer Service

You have the right to timely communication with a live customer service representative by telephone or by e-mail at no charge; to be treated with courtesy, respect, and fairness; and receive prompt response to your questions or concerns.

The Right to Privacy

We care about how your personal information is handled. We review our privacy policy regularly to ensure it meets industry standards and we seek input on our privacy policy from you our customer, leading consumer groups, and privacy advocates.

Intelius stands by our Customer Bill of Rights

Our Chief Privacy Officer is also our chief customer advocate and, at the direction of our Board of Directors, it is his job to make sure we say what we do and do what we say.  If you have any questions about our Customer Bill of Rights, he can be reached at customers@intelius.com.