Data privacy vs convenience: customer’s viewpoint

Abstract

With the rate of technological advancements and adoption growing exponentially and the major explosion in digital technologies, data has become a critical resource and it is being collected in every interaction between a company and the user, be it online or offline. Companies are actively collecting all sorts of data, right from user purchases to their browsing history across various social media platforms, web browsers, shopping applications etc. This rapid inflow of data has been augmented by the wide array of new smart, connected products surrounding us which generate data of our every movement. Though firms portray openness about their data privacy and protection measures and take user consent while collecting the data, users are generally unaware of how the data will be used and what all is being used by the companies. And they tend to collect huge loads of data which aren’t of any use in the current scenario in the hope that it will come handy in the future. Such unrestricted usage of customer data by companies may offer some short-term advantages but since customer know that they are under surveillance (though they may not know the exact specifics of it) in the long run this would hurt the trust in the brand. Also, with such widespread usage of data there is an increasing paranoia among people. This has given rise to a trade-off between data privacy and the convenience received via such data sharing.