The United Nations Blockchain for Impact Global Summit

The UN hosted our Executive Director, Christiana Cacciapuoti, and our board members, Tim Ringel, Global CEO at Reprise Digital, Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer at Omnicom Media Group, and Sarah Feinberg, Founder of Feinberg Strategies, for a panel at their annual Blockchain for Impact Global Summit — an invitation-only event focused on engaging with UN leaders on the opportunities that blockchains present to solve the most urgent challenges of our day.

The topic of our panel dealt with an issue at the forefront of our industry: How can we protect consumer data privacy?

It’s no secret that consumers are becoming more concerned about how companies are using their data. The co-founder of Facebook recently wrote an op-ed calling for regulators to break up the social networking giant. The New York Times launched an editorial series dubbed, “The Privacy Project” this spring.

“The headline is: change is coming,” said Sarah Feinberg. “In a recent poll, 79% of respondents are not comfortable with the level of personal data being collected about them. That certainly stands out to the Congress.”

Advertising has changed significantly since the first online ad in 1994, when a deal was struck directly between the advertiser and publisher. Today, we have a much more complex ecosystem with upwards of 15 different intermediaries involved in a single transaction. These companies use data to match the right consumer to an ad, measure who saw it, and stitch together attribution.

“What data does is help marketers understand if their advertising is effective,” said Jonathan Steuer. “At the end of the day marketers don’t want to be intrusive, annoying, or creepy, they just want it to work.”

The data and identity plumbing used in digital advertising today dates back 15 years. As technology becomes more ingrained in our lives, we’re leaving behind a greater amount of more detailed, personal data. The legacy media infrastructure was not built with consumer privacy in mind.

“The opportunity for blockchain is to provide a mechanism to secure the data flow from consumer to advertiser and make sure that doesn’t leak to anyone else.” said Jonathan Steuer “It’s good for brands, because it lets them talk to the people they want to talk to, and good for consumers because it gives them an opportunity to control their data and collapse a lot of the mess in between.”

Data sovereignty enabled by blockchain technology could be revolutionary. It stands to provide the foundation that allows consumers to have better control over how their data is used, what is shared, and who it is shared with.

“Ultimately, the consumer needs to have a way to opt in and opt out of who they want to share data with,” said Tim Ringel. “Today, that is not possible because consumers don’t know where their data is.”

“The right solution is the blockchain solution,” said Sarah Feinberg. “The consumer has much more choice and ability to engage with the kind of marketing that makes sense to them, and marketers are able to do their job effectively and efficiently.”