The law, especially international data protection law, is highly complex and it pays to understand how consumer privacy maps against business data and then across regions and countries worldwide.
Where and how you store data is important, what type you collect and about what type of entity and also the use of that data all come into question.
Users need to give permission in many cases and in some countries need to be given access to the data being held – all this complexity requires thought, control and access. This is an expensive and time-consuming issue that has to be thought about in the context of the customer base you sell and their worldwide locations.
Most software Companies are now global, even tiny startups, due to the ease of access to app stores, distribution systems and the internet, therefore you need to have a system to control and manage the data and to protect it if you plan to use any form of collection from your users.
Software Analytics Services can help once again by providing the infrastructure and options required to segment and control the data, both from a capture and content perspective. In many cases, you may wish to block data to be collected from a region (like consumer data from Switzerland or Germany for example) or ensure the data is anonymous, but in other areas or where you have been granted permission, you will want to connect users with their usage to get the best results.
Here are some scenarios:
- The automatic transmission of all data - useful for beta testing, NFR, resellers, affiliates or in-house corporate applications for which users have granted consent as part of agreements they accepted prior to installing the program.
- Automatic transmission with opt-in or a later opt-out is better for commercially available software applications to enable informed consent and maintain a high degree of transparency and trust with your users.
- Prompt for transmission after errors or in an environment that is not internet connected is ideal and a universally accepted process.
- Prompt for transmission in an environment that is not internet connected, with a site to upload the data too, is great for a collaborative effort with enterprise type customers.
Transmit upon user request is again a way to send data about an event without user privacy issues.