Is privacy the new sustainability goal for enterprises?

Indeed, most of the readers may know that Apple has been focusing on privacy- default settings on its devices. This means that in 2021 new set ups have been developed, such as the possibility for the user to know in advance which third parties are involved in an app even before the download, the obligation for developers to expose a sort of white paper on privacy within the App Store and the “Ask app not to track” function on IoS.

Recently this latter option created a debate among the businesses- let’s say big players- on how the privacy could cost on their growth. This is the case of Facebook and Snap, who have reported that the boom of the advertisings and insertions within their Apps has contributed to the increase of profits within the periods of pandemic and the period before the release of the IoS 14 modifications. But their main concern is that such positive business changes could be affected by an enforcement of privacy measures adopted by Apple, which, in fact, is giving users a further and effective chance to deny precious consents which have been usually and insofar designed by publishers to be given with some workarounds.

The impact is surely a point in favor of data subjects and transparency, also of an exponentially-threatened- personal data protection.

The fact is that all of us, as users and data subjects, are divided between the expectation of protecting our privacy due to the exposure of the tech era, but also the exigence of having a pre-packed and tailored browsing experience. We do like to find the fittest product option in our interests, to find that exact thing we had in mind, by just digiting few words on our query tool, and to be pleased by communications we do have interests in. But also, we get upset if we think our data- those data used to provide us such customised services- are shared with third parties and monetised, used to make others’ business grow.

On the other hand, as for Italian web enterprises, the matter of privacy is getting more troubled. Indeed, they have until January 2022 to take the measures required by the Guidelines of the Italian DPA in place. This means a new banner layout, explicit consents and no tricks like the scroll down as a method to acquire users’ consents. Also, the prohibition to discriminate those users who did not provide their consent to cookies by inhibiting them from a complete fruition of contents and other requirements.

Surely, the European Union has a deeper sensitivity on privacy and the GDPR is a demonstration of that, compared to other countries of the world. But cross-over and multinational companies are forced to comply with different regulation, as various as the number of entities and sites they are established in. Such rules are real requirements and governance policies in the EU, especially if thinking on data protection.

And, actually, a vicious circle is not only experienced by the subjects acting as users and data subjects, but also by the businesses. The example of Facebook and Snap shows companies are acting with the exigence of their increase and the threat to be fined if not acting in compliance with regulations.

There might be no effective solution to this dense competition. And maybe the one actually gaining both trustworthiness and economic increase within this episode might be Apple itself. 

This might be a lesson that privacy and technology could work together: it could be a valid incentive to web European and Italian players currently worried about how to make their privacy matters and policy productively work.

Is maybe privacy the new sustainability goal for enterprises?