Trust Your Telco?
It was circa 1992 when I first discovered hacking and tracking at the local telephone company. We had PCs on our desks but we worked in an enclosed, secure room with IBM terminals to access the customer billing system . One afternoon, my colleague was printing Call Detail Records when corporate security showed up and escorted him out of the office.
He was fired because he conducted an unauthorized search for an individual's phone number. Essentially, he hacked the system to find personal information on a guy who turned out to be a cop. When he threatened the cop with revealing an affair to the man's wife, one thing led to another and corporate security tracked his "hack" back to his login. It was just like the NSA, spying on a person through his phone records and tracing a breadcrumb trail back to the hacker.
Telcos don't mess around - they are regulated entities with governance and controls to protect personal customer information. Consumers have a long history of trusting Telcos with call records, social contacts, location, demographics, credit cards, online activity and personal information. Telcos are second only to banks as trusted parties to handle personal data. With IoT in our homes, our cars, our healthcare apps and wearables, personal data is increasingly important and brand trust will create a competitive advantage.
It's the early days of digital voice assistants, market penetration is in the single digits and Telcos are most likely to seize market share as fast followers. As artificial intelligence and machine learning evolve, the main concern of consumers is that their personal data will be sold to a third party.
Telcos created the first big data personal data management systems and it's become significant to their market valuation. Privacy and security are core competencies - over the last ten years, Telcos have spent billions of dollars on their network operations to collect, store, secure and analyze petabytes of personal data.
Because of their brand trust and core competencies, Telcos are poised for substantial growth opportunities as they decide to build or partner on trusted solutions. They have options to create unique customer experiences, anonymized data as a service (DaaS) or a trusted ecosystem for 3rd party and IoT applications and services. Telcos should absolutely develop intelligent, cognitive services to create digital experiences that are contextual, emotional, personal and trustworthy. They should open their channel to trusted 3rd parties and help consumers govern their personal data for value exchange.
Consumers consider three key attributes upon which digital trust is built: Transparency, Value Exchange and Security. Most people have only limited knowledge of how their data is shared and monetized. Therefore, they find it important that companies tell them what data is collected and how it is used. Consumers want more control over how companies use their data with opt-in / opt-out options based on what, when and with whom different types of data is shared.
Offering a fair value exchange is also important to maintain trust. Consumers often feel that they are not adequately compensated for their personal data. More sensitive data (e.g. financial, mobile, location, purchase history) requires a higher return for the consumer. In IBM's 2016 Global Telecom Consumer Survey, 38% of consumers preferred free or discounted products and services while 29% preferred cash back in return for providing personal data.
Recommendations for Value Exchange:
- Use cognitive analytics to understand what customers value: Invest in cognitive analytics to develop real-time contextual insights by tapping into behavior patterns, trends and sentiments from both structured and unstructured data.
- Deploy an API-based ecosystem platform to bring in value-added services from partners: Enable third parties to access core Telco capabilities to develop personal data-based apps and services, that give customers real value for the data they share.
- Clarify to customers the benefits they receive in exchange for sharing personal data: 1.) Shift from a one-way data-collection mindset to a two-way transaction or “fair- value” exchange approach. 2.) Share personal insights with the customer. 3.) Stop using data from customer groups that see no or negative value from these Telco practices.
Cyber security is the third pillar of trust for personal data. Telcos haven't been completely spared of data breaches but they are among the most diligent and advanced in cyber security. Telcos will continue to strengthen security strategies to build digital trust and remain accountable for any breaches. Blockchain and cognitive security systems will help Telcos identify and stop emerging threats.
Security Recommendations:
- Radically transform practices for security in the Cloud: Continue to invest in cloud-secure technology, to provide optimal security protection for customers and to improve defenses against threats
- Access the potential of Blockchain technology: Use this technology to deliver a single authoritative entity for trust. It can, for example, add mobile payment capabilities to enable autonomous transactions within IoT platforms
- Use cognitive technology to identify security threats: Deploy cognitive security systems to analyze vast amounts of structured and unstructured data to provide insights into emerging threats, and how to stop them
- Educate your customers about securing their personal data: It is not sufficient to present them the terms and conditions of using data, it is important to educate them in security best practices about their personal data.
Debi Stack is the IBM lead partner for AI and cognitive solutions in the Communications, Media & Entertainment Industry. For current insights on #AI, #ML and #Blockchain Follow her on Twitter @debrastack or on Linked In @Debi Stack