063 - Beyond Compliance: Designing Data Products With Data Privacy As a UX Benefit with The Data Diva (Debbie Reynolds)

Debbie Reynolds is known as “The Data Diva” — and for good reason.    In addition to being founder, CEO and chief data privacy officer of her own successful consulting firm, Debbie has been named to the Global Top 20 CyberRisk Communicators by The European Risk Policy Institute in 2020. She’s also written a few books, such as The GDPR Challenge: Privacy, Technology, and Compliance In An Age of Accelerating Change; as well as articles for other publications.   If you are building data products, especially customer-facing software, you’ll want to tune into this episode. Debbie and Ihad an awesome discussion about data privacy from the lens of user experience instead of the typical angle we are all used to: legal compliance. While collecting user data can enable better user experiences, we can also break a customer’s trust if we don’t request access properly.     In our chat, we covered: 'Humans are using your product': What it means to be a 'data steward' when building software. (0:27) 'Privacy by design': The importance for software creators to think about privacy throughout the entire product creation process. (4:32) The different laws (and lack thereof) regarding data privacy — and the importance to think about a product's potential harm during the design process. (6:58) The importance of having 'diversity at all levels' when building data products. (16:41) The role of transparency in data collection. (19:41) Fostering a positive and collaborative relationship between a product or service’s designers, product owners, and legal compliance experts. (24:55) The future of data monetization and how it relates to privacy. (29:18)   Resources and Links: Debbie’s Website. Twitter: @DebbieDataDiva Debbie’s LinkedIn Quotes from Today’s Episode When it comes to your product, humans are using it. Regardless of whether the users are internal or external — what I tell people is to put themselves in the shoes of someone who’s using this and think about what you would want to have done with your information or with your rights. Putting it in that context, I think, helps people think and get out of their head about it. Obviously there’s a lot of skill and a lot of experience that it takes to build these products and think about them in technical ways. But I also try to tell people that when you’re dealing with data and you’re building products, you’re a data steward. The data belongs to someone else, and you’re holding it for them, or you’re allowing them to either have access to it or leverage it in some way. So, think about yourself and what you would think you would want done with your information. - Debbie (3:28)   Privacy by design is looking at the fundamental levels of how people are creating things, and having them think about privacy as they’re doing that creation. When that happens, then privacy is not a difficult thing at the end. Privacy really isn’t something you could tack on at the end of something; it’s something that becomes harder if it’s not baked in. So, being able to think about those things throughout the process makes it easier. We’re seeing situations now where consumers are starting to vote with their feet — if they feel like a tool or a process isn’t respecting their privacy rights, they want to be able to choose other things. So, I think that’s just the way of the world. .... It may be a situation where you’re going to lose customers or market share if you’re not thinking about the rights of individuals. - Debbie (5:20)   I think diversity at all levels is important when it comes to data privacy, such as diversity in skill sets, points of view, and regional differences. … I think people in the EU — because privacy is a fundamental human right — feel about it differently than we do here in the US where our privacy rights don’t really kick in unless it’s a transaction. ...  The parallel I say is that people in Europe feel about privacy like we feel about freedom of speech here — it’s just very deeply ingr