BURTONSVILLE, MD, January 31, 2017 – iControl Data Solutions (iControl), a leading process improvement and business insights provider to Retailers, Suppliers and Brokers, reaffirms its commitment to client data confidentiality and ownership.
To take full advantage of the many technology solutions and services that are available to merchants and their suppliers, distributors and brokers, these trading partners must share vast amounts of data - often with outside 3rd parties that may provide services utilizing that data. The contents of these data sets is often highly confidential, and could include sensitive data such as product pricing, planned promotional activity, promotional allowances, and retail POS sales.
Without specific contract terms or data governance policies in place between trading partners and such outside 3rd parties, this confidential data can be at risk. There are some data and payments companies that, upon receipt of a client's data, consider it their own property - an asset that can then be monetized to benefit their own bottom lines. Although that fact alone may surprise some, what should be of greater concern is the lack of control a trading partner has over their data once it is distributed and made available without their authorization. This confidential, often proprietary data can be bought and sold without regard for any potential damage that could be incurred by the trading partner.
Confidentiality
We take the privacy of our clients and their data extremely seriously. We treat every data set as highly confidential, regardless of what is contained in that data set. Our clients' data is managed by an established, secure database architecture - accommodating needs for separate, dedicated servers as requested by our clients to ensure their data is not exposed to unauthorized users.
Further, we maintain established data governance policies with each client to ensure the accessibility to highly confidential data is secure and managed on an individual user basis. Each client has an assigned administrator who is the only person who can grant access to a new user, or expand access to existing users.
We do not share any client data outside of the established data governance policy, and as authorized by the client having ownership of that data.
We believe it is our obligation to treat customer data as an asset, and that asset belongs to our customers. You can depend on iControl to be a responsible and transparent handler of your data.
Ownership
As a client, although you are using our proprietary software to collect massive amounts of data about your business and other 3rd party vendors, we want you to feel comfortable in knowing that iControl has committed to never sell or trade it to other parties. iControl has not, and will never will claim ownership of client data.
In fact, we take every measure possible to ensure your data remains yours - including contract terms stating as such. Also, we do not aggregate your data, or utilize anonymization as a technique to undermine the intended protections of your data in any form.
Here is iControl's very straightforward position on Ownership of data:
- We do not own our customers' data
- The customer that contributed the data has ownership of the data
- We do not federate or aggregate customer data
- We will not seek to monetize our customers' data without permission
Best Practices for Data Sharing
We are committed to developing policies and procedures that ensure we have our customers' best interests at the forefront of everything we do. It is our intent to set a new level of expectations about how technology should work for you. We encourage our current and prospective clients to using the following set of criteria while evaluating a 3rd party provider, preferably prior to the beginning of an engagement:
- Ensure your vendors respect your data as much as you protect it.
- What is their position on ownership of your data?
- Upon receipt, do they consider your data to be their asset?
- Do you have any rights to what happens to your data?
- Understand what happens to your data and who can see it.
- What types of data governance policies do they have in place to protect your data?
- How do they ensure your data is not accessible to unauthorized users?
- Ask if vendors are monetizing or selling your data.
- What is your 3rd party provider's policy on monetizing, outright selling, or any other form of unauthorized sharing of your confidential data?
If you would like to know more about how iControl's commitment to protecting your Company's data can improve the security and preserve one of your most valuable assets, contact us today.
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