Kathleen Stockham - Chief Marketing Officer, South College.
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Does your brand have a privacy policy? (Okay, come on now. If you truly don’t have one by now, pour yourself a strong drink because you may be headed for a courtroom near you!)
Have you read your policy and any social media platform user agreements side by side? Perhaps you should give it another review.
Several states now join California this year in increased data privacy regulations—for example, the right to remove personal data and the collection and storage of that data from websites and other applications, and any additional “use” of that data. However, what most brands fail to realize is that by providing a link (or access or otherwise an “invitation”) to join the brand on social platforms, they may be potentially violating their own privacy standards to a certain degree, given the “concerning” nature of some platforms and the personal data they consume. (And allegedly use for other things.)
In December, the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned one particular social media platform from U.S. government-subsidized phones. That’s an interesting position to take in this hyper-sensitive climate of data privacy. If your role is to govern the use of data, perhaps it is time you actually listen to the rising tide of concern out there regarding these platforms and the safety of your customers.
Need more convincing? Consider this Forbes article involving what appears to be “retaliation spying” on U.S.-based journalists who were actively investigating information about a particular platform based on internal reports shared with the journalists. The U.S.-based leadership team of this popular social app actively tried all sorts of verbal acrobatics to refute or downplay the seriousness of the story. However, what could not be denied was that part of the platform team eventually admitted they deployed tracking tactics on the journalists.
Holy Big Brother and a side of pancakes!
Is having a social media presence for your customers worth the threat of that? How does that kind of surveillance match up with your privacy policy?
Consider this CNBC article about how some large brands are now removing social logins from their sites. To me, this is clearly a nod to consumers and consumer privacy advocates who have been raising alarms about well-documented breaches of consumer data by some social media platforms for several years. So at some of these brands, they are paying attention. So what about you?
Granted, consumers and users who check the boxes and willingly add social apps to their devices are accountable for assumption of the risk. However, given the litigious nature of technology right now, I think it’s a huge risk that a brand is taking. It may only be a matter of time before a well-intentioned state attorney general decides to go after retailers, brands and other companies that encourage and invite their customers to join them on these platforms without some kind of disclosure or warning. Not to mention unscrupulous legal types who prey upon the uninformed and could hang around legal loopholes on data privacy like raccoons by a dumpster.
After all, brands rely on trust and credibility with their customers, so a less technically savvy consumer could take the “invitation” at literal value and assume if “you” are there, then it must be okay. Are you okay with that?
If you are taking your privacy policy seriously and truly adhering to its stated intent, then perhaps it’s time to take a hard look under the hood at what you are really accomplishing to be completely “compliant” with the new laws and regulations headed toward you like a large comet.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s a good idea to cover yourself from all angles and add a small disclosure under your social media icons on your website that could say, “By connecting on these platforms, we cannot guarantee the privacy of your data and security of your information.” (Small, sure, but it would at least be obvious and earmarked that expectation of any data privacy protection accountable to you ends with the tap over to these social platforms.) No one could say in a court of law that you did not warn them, right?
Or, you could follow the growing chorus of industries, brands and entities that are shutting the door and shutting down even being in the same sentence with some apps and preferring to stay away.
Stop and think about what information your company already puts out on social media (e.g., photos, videos, names, faces, addresses, plans, announcements, locations and more). Are you sure letting the data-theft wolves manage the customer data henhouse is a smart brand leadership decision?
Are goofy videos of employees after hours making jokes really worth the potential cost on the other end while the media’s rhetoric about data privacy and consumer protection grows?
If you think it’s not your problem, you may be a little schoolbook smart but sidewalk stupid. Don’t be naïve and think that you may “lose” customers because you don’t have a presence on this or that app or that your social media team is “monitoring” it.
Let’s go back to D.C. for a second; again, not always the brightest bulbs in Congress, but what do they know about these apps that perhaps you and your team do not? If they aren’t willing to chance data collection and surveillance on government-issued devices, then why are you doing that to your customers and employees? Is their privacy not worth the same thing?
The information provided here is not legal advice and does not purport to be a substitute for advice of counsel on any specific matter. For legal advice, you should consult with an attorney concerning your specific situation.
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