Organizations are facing increasingly stringent and ever-changing legal obligations regarding the protection of customer rights and privacy, particularly in respect to marketing activities. While employing a privacy-first approach to data protection offers ample benefits and seems simple in theory, the consequences of getting it wrong are extremely detrimental. In response, Info-Tech Research Group has published its newest security resource, Privacy by Design for Digital Marketing. The research was created to help IT and marketing leaders design privacy-centric digital marketing operations that strike the best balance between meeting regulatory obligations and minimizing operational disruption.

In the new resource, the firm outlines the situation in which marketers find themselves, where they have substantial return on investment (ROI) pressure to collect as much customer information as possible while also adhering to legal requirements to justify that data collection and usage in delivering value to the customer. Ethical marketing involves not losing or selling customer data, collecting only necessary information for a given purpose, and giving people control over their personal data sharing.

Digital marketing is a broad category of channels, technologies, services, and practices, with new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), marketing automation, and predictive analytics being regularly introduced into the marketing space. Technologies used and the way they are deployed in online advertising and marketing have the potential to be highly privacy intrusive, increasing the need for intentional data protection efforts.

"In the consumer world, transparency, trust, and control of personal data is key to expanding the customer base," says Alan Tang, principal research director of Security & Privacy at Info-Tech Research Group. "Embedding privacy-by-design principles into the digital marketing lifecycle and processes will enable business growth while simultaneously managing data protection risks. It's also important to remember that organizations should only collect adequate, relevant, and limited personal information that is necessary for business purposes."