Balancing The Impact, Ethiccs, And Security of People Data

As Access to Data Increases, so Does its Potential for Impact and Risk

- By Kathi Enderes

We live in a time of exponential technology growth: There is 900% more data being generated and flowing through businesses than there was two years ago.1 Opportunities to harvest data (including your personal data) are everywhere. But with these opportunities comes risk, as many organizations struggle to balance data access and impact with security, privacy, and ethics.

Ideally, data is managed securely and ethically with organizations using data insights to help improve results and with workers using the insights to manage their productivity, well-being, performance, and career development. However, when data is not protected or is misused, this may negatively impact privacy, infringe on people’s personal identity, lead to misguided decisions, and damage the company’s brand.

THE POTENTIAL FOR IMPACT

84% of organizations think that people analytics are a priority for their business2 and 72% have acted on this priority by investing in analytics’ resources, technologies, trainings, or other related areas.3