Implement your data privacy strategy with Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

In the third episode of our Masterclass for marketers series, organized in collaboration with Timo Dechau from deepskydata, our experts discuss designing a successful data privacy strategy.

Siobhan Solberg, a privacy consultant and the founder of Raze, takes a look at implementing privacy-focused data collection strategies. She explains how privacy by design works and how to use it to your advantage when planning analytics setups.

Let’s dive into this topic and discover the key tips for defining a privacy strategy in Piwik PRO Analytics Suite.

How to create a strategy in a world with less data

Having a clear data strategy becomes even more crucial in a world with less data. Now that we are faced with limited information for decision-making and strategic planning, organizations are getting less sophisticated insights. A data strategy outlines the processes and objectives behind data usage within the company, helps align data initiatives with business goals, and ensures data governance processes are in place. 

But how do you create a strategy in a world with less data? Our experts offer a few tips on doing it the right way.

• Align your data privacy strategy with your business strategy: Aligning strategies ensures that data initiatives contribute directly to achieving business goals and delivering value. By integrating the data strategy with the business strategy, companies can boost ongoing innovation and adapt to changing market conditions.
• Incorporate change management: Companies should expect improvements and adjustments over time and incorporate these changes into their data strategy. This approach ensures that data initiatives remain relevant and effective amid evolving business requirements.
• Define roles and alignment: Roles should be assigned based on the specific needs outlined in the data strategy, ensuring that responsibilities are clear and aligned with data governance principles.
• Integrate privacy and security: Depending on the organization’s focus, privacy measures may be incorporated into the data strategy or fall under data governance. Addressing privacy concerns is essential to maintaining customer trust and complying with regulatory requirements.
• Focus on data governance: Data governance involves defining policies, procedures, and responsibilities for data management to ensure data quality, integrity, and security. By establishing robust data governance frameworks, organizations can maximize the value derived from available data while mitigating risks associated with its usage.

When you’re thinking from a data strategy perspective, you should start by considering data protection and privacy. Once you’ve developed that, you can create a data governance policy and processes related to it, using the data strategy as the baseline.

Siobhan Solberg, Privacy consultant and the founder of Raze

Obstacles to overcome while designing data privacy strategy

Designing privacy setups without a proper strategy can lead to many problems for companies. When privacy measures are set up without a coherent approach, they grow without management. And finding someone who fully understands the setup becomes challenging. This lack of control can result in unchecked data collection, processing, and storage practices. 

Such non-strategic setups often originate from ad-hoc decisions made by different teams using various tools and methods, resulting in inconsistencies across departments. Without a deliberate privacy strategy, companies face challenges in tracking and understanding data practices, hindering transparency. 

Companies can overlook some critical security considerations, exposing sensitive data to breaches and unauthorized access. Also, compliance with data protection laws like GDPR can become uncertain, which may result in legal liabilities and penalties. 

In the worst-case scenario, companies realize the severity of their setup issues only after a breach or investigation, necessitating costly and time-consuming remediation efforts. When employees struggle with complicated data-handling processes, operational inefficiencies can increase. Privacy breaches can also damage a company’s reputation and impact customer loyalty, investor confidence, and brand perception.

What is privacy by design

Another concept our experts brought up is privacy by design (PbD). It’s a framework that embeds privacy and data protection principles into the design and operation of systems, processes, and products from the outset. Privacy by design is a value-based system that integrates privacy and data protection into every organization’s operations. It ensures that privacy permeates the organization’s processes and systems, reflecting the company’s and its customers’ values.

Adopting privacy by design implies that respecting privacy lies at the core of company values. By choosing this framework, organizations signal their commitment to making privacy an integral part of their culture. With principles that serve as guidelines for shaping data strategy, companies can assess and align data practices with privacy and data protection goals.

Implementing privacy by design principles involves translating abstract concepts into concrete actions. Organizations can develop subsets or guidelines for each principle, detailing their application to data management and processing practices. Once established, companies can include these principles within daily business activities, integrating PbD considerations into decision-making processes, system design, product development, and data-handling procedures.

A data privacy strategy helps a lot in aligning people and putting them on the same page. Nothing really happens in one room with one or two people – it basically happens within the company. So talk to each other, figure things out, come to an understanding.

Timo Dechau, Founder, Tracking & Analytics Engineer at deepskydata

Define a data privacy strategy in Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

Creating an effective data privacy strategy using Piwik PRO Analytics Suite requires a structured approach that considers various key factors. Timo and Siobhan used their expertise to provide useful advice for making the most of our analytics platform. 

Identify data

Identifying the specific data necessary for achieving your business goals is crucial. This involves engaging relevant marketing, sales, and data management teams to comprehensively understand their requirements and align objectives accordingly. 

Balance data collection

Assessing whether additional data points align with user experience is essential to ensuring that data collection practices enhance rather than hinder user interaction. Striking a balance between collecting necessary data for objectives and additional data that improves user experience or supports future strategies is equally important. 

Analyze the data

Each data point should be carefully analyzed to understand its contribution to specific use cases or objectives, such as personalization efforts or enhancing conversion rates.

Collaborate across teams

Collaboration with data management and security teams is critical to ensuring compliance with regulations and mitigating breaches. This applies to actively involving these teams in decision-making processes and implementing measures to safeguard data privacy and security. 

Prepare documentation

Documenting the cause behind data collection decisions is necessary for clarity and transparency, ensuring companies understand how data practices align with overarching business objectives. 

Gain actionable insights

Companies should shift their focus from vanity metrics to actionable insights directly impacting conversions, user experience, and marketing effectiveness. 

Ensure compliant data collection with Piwik PRO

By systematically implementing the above steps and leveraging the features offered by Piwik PRO Analytics Suite, companies can develop a robust data privacy strategy that effectively balances regulatory compliance, user experience, and business objectives. Our analytics platform adheres to multiple privacy laws. With continual monitoring and optimization of data collection practices, you can be sure that your strategy aligns with regulations, user expectations, and business objectives. 

Piwik PRO allows you to effectively implement your data privacy strategy, fostering trust and compliance in your data handling processes.