4 Essential E-Commerce Data Privacy Issues in 2022 and How to Overcome Them

Increasing customer privacy and trust in e-commerce should be a priority for all online businesses. Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to data privacy issues and work towards solving them to preserve customer trust. If customers feel they’re not able to trust an e-commerce platform, they likely won’t use it. That’s why data privacy is much more than just complying with applicable regulations and laws—it’s about building trust with the customer and letting them know you value their personally identifiable information.

Below are four of the most important data privacy issues that your e-commerce business should be aware of in this time of increasing data privacy concerns.

1. Lack of Responsibility, Both Corporate and Individual

GDPR and cookie consent have really been a wake-up call to the importance of data responsibility for many businesses, especially e-commerce. Unfortunately, this is largely because data privacy is being enforced and businesses won’t be able to avoid fines and penalties if they don’t comply. There must be a sense of responsibility when handling consumer data at all levels of the organization, assessing and documenting data processing practices regularly. For individuals to truly feel free to let a business handle their personal information, the business must go beyond compliance, putting their customers first before any profit that can be made by sharing information with third parties.

Data privacy is not just a corporate responsibility. Individuals are responsible for the information they place online, especially on social media. Websites cannot be held responsible for individuals publishing private information publicly, although they can take steps to assist individuals in securing their personal information.

2. Need for Individual Control

As part of the data compliance process for an e-commerce website under regulations such as GDPR, individuals must have control of their information. This means they must be able to see it and request its deletion at any time.

While this wasn’t a standard practice until very recently, consumers are realizing it’s possible and are demanding it more and more. However, it isn’t a simple feature to implement, especially for smaller e-commerce websites. Even just implementing proper cookie consent is a time-consuming or costly process. Providing all customers a way to control their data and see the purposes it’s used for involves setting up an entire data management system, but it’s an essential feature.

3. Consumers Demanding More Transparency

As the concern over profiteering from shady data processing tactics rises, consumers are demanding more transparency about how their information is being used and sold. While there are many benefits to e-commerce privacy laws, many websites are still not complying with all industry standards, resulting in public outrage when they become public. Often, personal information databases are being compromised by hackers, bringing to light instances where consumers’ data was sent or sold to data dealers without their knowledge.

Business practices and functions don’t all need to be public, but consumers should have the right to know how their information is being used and who’s receiving it if a website shares it with a third party.

4. More Investment in Privacy Technologies

Businesses are often taken aback by the cost of privacy technologies. Unfortunately, compliance isn’t as simple as creating a cookie pop-up on a website. Privacy technologies that can handle all consumer data properly, both for the benefit of the business (for metrics, advertising, and analysis purposes) and the customer’s privacy, don’t come cheap.

Following a guide to e-commerce privacy laws is a great place to start. Employing a data manager or some other data science professional is a good idea too since it’s often difficult for existing employees who aren’t technologically inclined to adapt to the demands of the data privacy environment. Such data scientists don’t come cheap, but they’re worth their weight in gold in this digital age.

There Must First Be Awareness

Before the detection and prevention of issues can be possible, there must first be awareness. That’s why we listed some of the most important data privacy issues faced by e-commerce today. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so be sure to do some research yourself, or partner with a data privacy compliance platform that will help you navigate these issues with ease.