PDEC – Call for Hot Topics / Papers (Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium)

PDEC Call for hot topics/papers

Tuesday 4D

Convener: Dean Landsman

Notes-taker(s):

Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

PDEC, White Papers, Hot topics

PDEC discussion on ideas on relevant White Papers related with Personal Data

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

SESSION SUMMARY

The objective of the session was to help define a set of topics to develop for PDEC (on Personal Data) in order to convey knowledge and awareness on this broad and critical topic. Further, to do so as a way to try to identity future business opportunities in the community and add to the ongoing discussion.

The session was very fluent and many issues were raised and discussed during its course.

The main conclusion of the session was that the group would gather in the future on a regular basis – hopefully a weekly basis, virtually or physically – with the objective to identify first what are the hot topics in the area (via research using tools such as Buzzfeed’s Analytics Topic Generator or similar mechanisms) with the aim to develop very short and easy to read articles (such as, for example, “Data Brokers at a glance”) that could produce immediate impact on the community by raising awareness on facts that are happening in this area and that are actually “pain points” or critical business issues to members of PDEC and also to the IIW Community at large.

SESSION NOTES

PDEC intends to organize meetings, conferences,and increased activity on its website.. This session was a step toward identifying topic areas that would be of interest to PDEC members, and also that would be of value to the Personal Data Ecosystem.

LaVonne Reimer (PDEC member and participant in the PDE Governance Committee) has been working on a White Paper for PDC to publish, exploring ways to facilitate the exchange of information among companies in order to deal with identity problems and to enhance usability.

PDEC is building a glossary of terms defining a common language. It is the belief of PDEC that this is an important step for its members and also for the Community at large.

“We are looking for subjects… and will continue to do so with outreach over the coming months.

Lionel Wolberger (of PDEC member company Emmett Global) offered suggestion: In addition to white papers, how about something else? Short, three paragraph overviews of Personal Data topic areas, offered to the membership to read and then discuss. (see more on this below as it was gone into in further detail).

Dean Landsman (PDEC Communications Director) suggests that we need white papers that can be used as the base for a discussion. Also need to build out discussion on topics and issues of concern to PDEC members and of note in the Personal Data Ecosystem. The white papers can and should stimulate discussion and also help state PDEC’s position and view on these topics. Personal Data is a highly charged arena, with all the breaches of late and the increasing awareness that Google, Amazon, the NSA and others (advertisers and marketers) use cookies and data mining to acquire and in many cases sell the Personal Data of individuals. Often this is done, yet unknown to those whose data is being acquired.

LaVonne replies that the aim of this Working Group is to be a group of doers instead of thinkers…

Dean suggests a possible paper: What kind of labs could we develop? People here at IIW have many ideas that could be put in place in such labs…In IIW there is a good mixture of people from academia and from industry with different goals that together could make very interesting projects.

Lavonne: Topic suggestion -- Blackboxes vs. Open Systems

A white paper clarifying Personal Data Ecosystem definitions….

Dean notes that once we have a good glossary we can facilitate conveying the information and products to be created for the end user.

What is the “End User” of which we speak? In first instance, End User should be the average consumer.

PDEC has great potential as publisher of papers based on projects that work and are related to Personal Data, Privacy Policy, Identity Verification, Trust frameworks separate from associations such as IPP.

In this case, customers of PDEC are businesses….

Small businesses are a blurred point between user data and commercial data.

Let us see how Personal Data can be used for creating new businesses such as Using Real Estate as a use case for Personal Data. This is a system that implies such much Personal Data that is information used to take decisions on Mortgage, lending, etc.

What is the difference between Personal Data Manager, Personal Data Store, Vault, etc.

From a consumer perspective, they can get information from this which will increase their awareness of how their data is being used.

How do PDEC and Customer Commons (who work together very well and always hold a joint dinner the night before IIW) differentiate, and how does each’s publications differ? Customer Commons is for geared for the consumer. In the case of PDEC the feeling is that it is essential to speak the language of the enterprise to engage them. Similar to Customer Commons, we want to empower the individual to allow them to engage enterprises. (VRM!)

The above arose from a discussion of whether PDEC’s topics and white paper would represent individuals, end users. This brought up considerations of what Customer Commons’ mission is, and how PDEC and Customer Commons are complementary, and supportive of each other.

From a business perspective the centricity of personal data starts to become a problem in terms of glossary, definition, and clarity amongst the various players in enterprise (and others in the wilds of commerce) as rules and roles become unclear due to the lack of a body offering standards, etc.

Our (PDEC’s) role is to set industry standards and develop a glossary…

There presently is no existing authoritative paper on empowering the user. Much VRM discussion centers around this but not specifically in reference to Personal Data.

There is no research or proof indicating whether there is a marketplace for privacy… people don’t care (?)…this is about control… but in order for apps to be useful, you need to give some information… but you should provide this data with control. Privacy is a loaded term; it can mean various things to many people.

Dean stated that PDEC is looking into developing a “Good Housekeeping” litmus test for determining levels of compliance, respecting Personal Data and business activity with regard to such data.

Dean would love to put a paper that could be a request for compliance areas… if a company or entity requests a user’s email address (or anything else), what do they do with it? Why do they need (want) it?

Does it affect end users and is it a value for enterprise objectives? If so, what it the benefit or value to the consumer(s) who have provided this data?

Another topic: How the emerging eco-system can clear these issues it by itself – is this where compliance comes into play, or is a standard by which companies can be measured a better idea?

Oscar Manso (the Alexandra Institute, Denmark) raises the question that maybe privacy should be legally enforced such as in Europe, as a topic for discussion. How do standards differ across nations and continents? But here in USA it seems impossible to follow such approach of governmental enforcement. But is this what NSTIC is meant to do, or a variation on the theme?

Kaliya (Identity Woman/LeolaGroup, founder of PDEC) then mentioned that one of the great things about IIW is the mix between European and American companies…. An interesting paper would be to find a way to bridge both cultures to enhance privacy. And to get this done without harming businesses.

Karen Lewison (CEO, Pomcor) is working on a paper on the privacy instantiations of authentication…

Privacy is a tough word… that should be a word that would really need to be defined…

Other possible topic areas: Can an identity provider know where are you going in your transactions? There is no clear answer to that question…. Some people want to have that privacy and some other want the IdP to trace those transactions in order to avoid fraud…

Who controls that metadata as it goes further?

Another idea for white papers…

What if we did a series of many shorter offerings on the PDEC site, Personal Data zeitgeist topics as suggested via tools similar to Buzzfeed Analytics. These could be easily researched via the web and serve as an alternative to working on longer form papers… so let’s search for what Personal Data terms trend via Buzzfeed Analytics. So in addition to us solving the issue content let’s also look what topics are already in the wild, in various stages of discussion and perception.

Kallia thinks that this is really smart in terms of what is doable and also is easily accomplished.

A good start would be to use terms such as Data Brokers, Personal Data Systems at a glance, etc …

Dean suggests that this should be more of a discussion and share group that should collaborate weekly on a virtual or physical basis. PDEC will have Committees devoted to various areas of growth and operation. This is a good mandate for a committee.

Bill Wendell (RealEstateCafe) points that if you want to change somebody you don’t change it by connecting via his/her head but on a personal and emotional level. We should approach this with a view of solving problems. Are the “victims” or people in some sort of pain, with regard to uses of their Personal Data? What is happening that is causing pain? How to alleviate the pain? These reproblem areas where PDEC can find solutions, and PDEC members can make these things happen.

.

A very interesting article Bill proposed: “Real Estate is making life hell for home owners.”

The session could have gone on much longer but we all had other sessions of interest to attend. For the IIW participants attending the session and for PDC, it was a very productive session,