Consumers need to be better informed about data privacy

The online industry should come together to make sure consumers are better informed about data privacy, according to panellists at today’s Media Playground conference in London.

In a session on behavioural targeting, delegate Bryan Jago of OMD asked the panel whether following the controversy around Phorm, the “issues around data privacy and reassuring consumers are a bigger challenge” than establishing a universal online currency.

“The need for co-ordination on this is huge,” said Ian Dowds, UK vice president of Specific Media. “The one who sticks their head over the parapet is the one who will look sinister.”

Panellist David Webb, client director of media entertainment research at Nielsen Online, agreed that there should be a combined effort to educate consumers. “Phorm is the whipping boy in all this,” he said.

Fellow panellist Richard Windle, MD of Ipsos MediaCT, said that one of the main drivers of acceptance and awareness around the collection of consumers’ data would be for a well known brand such as the BBC to take steps in this area.

“What will drive acceptance is if the BBC get involved or Google, with clear opt-outs,” he said.

Webb also noted how different cultures react differently to questions of privacy, remarking that Nielsen has more trouble signing people to its panels in Germany than in the UK, as prospective panellists there tend to take time to read the T&Cs, whereas this is not so much the case in the UK.