As companies store more and more consumer data, they’re increasingly at risk of embarrassing — and even deeply damaging — breaches b

To Protect Consumer Data, Don’t Do Everything on the Cloud

submited by
Style Pass
2021-06-29 14:30:07

As companies store more and more consumer data, they’re increasingly at risk of embarrassing — and even deeply damaging — breaches by hackers. But what if they could glean useful insights without hoarding every scrap of data? Edge computing, in which data is processed locally on hardware instead of on the cloud, can help them do just that by implementing three critical design choices. The design choices begin with how to think about data collection and extend to the actual data processing. They are: 1) sufficiency, or a focus on only must-have data; 2) aggregation, or lumping data together to produce group insights; and 3) alteration, or making minor changes to the data to hide an individual’s identity while minimally impacting the accuracy of insights.

When collecting consumer data, there is almost always a risk to consumer privacy. Sensitive information could be leaked unintentionally or breached by bad actors. For example, the Equifax data breach of 2017 compromised the personal information of 143 million U.S. consumers. Smaller breaches, which you may or may not hear about, happen all the time. As companies collect more data — and rely more heavily on its insights — the potential for data to be compromised will likely only grow.

Leave a Comment