A recent trip down a London Drugs dental hygiene aisle made Poya Haghnegahdar pause when he saw a customer use a smartphone to compare toothbrush prices in the store with those listed by Amazon.com.
鈥淓verybody wants value. Everybody wants an amazing experience,鈥� said the CEO of Find Innovation Labs Inc. 鈥淭he question is: is it possible for small and medium-sized businesses to offer that?鈥�
Find Innovation Labs Inc. CEO Poya Haghnegahdar showcases his company鈥檚 app (Photo: Rob Kruyt)
And in a post-Cambridge Analytica world, the followup question is whether businesses that rely on data can assure customers their personal information is secure.
Haghnegahdar said the solution is to not collect personal data in the first place 鈥� even for customer loyalty programs that track shopping habits to make personalized offers.
Technology from the Vancouver-based startup promises to address industry and consumer concerns about collection of personal data by keeping customers fully anonymous.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 know who you are, and that鈥檚 the beauty of this,鈥� Haghnegahdar said.
Collection of customer data became more difficult recently when the European Union implemented new privacy rules under its General Data Protection Regulation.
The new laws not only apply to European companies but also to Canadian companies that target any EU citizen with their services. Companies that don鈥檛 properly protect user data face fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of global revenue 鈥� whichever figure is higher. The rules are putting pressure on companies to find unique ways to guard personal data, Haghnegahdar said.
One way for businesses to avoid running afoul of privacy laws is to track behaviour without collecting personal information.
Find Innovation Labs鈥� customer loyalty app follows individuals鈥� shopping habits at participating merchants and allows those stores to make personalized offers to shoppers based on past behaviour.
But the app never collects any personal data like names, birthdays or addresses, and there鈥檚 no sign-up procedure after downloading.
Instead, customers tap their phones on a near-field-communication-equipped sticker at the register.
This identifies the retail location while a copy of the store鈥檚 receipt is sent to Find鈥檚 database, where it is matched to the time-stamp for when the sticker was tapped.
鈥淎ll we collect is transactions associated with some random ID that we generate. And that鈥檚 all we need to be able to drive loyalty and retention,鈥� Haghnegahdar said.
But Ale Brown, founder and principal consultant at Kirke Management Consulting, said it鈥檚 difficult for any consumer-driven app to offer an anonymous experience.
鈥淏y definition you cannot say 鈥榩ersonalized services鈥� and 鈥榓nonymization鈥� in the same sentence. It鈥檚 a paradox,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淵es, you are not collecting a name or address or a phone number or an email address. But you are collecting something 鈥� so that at the end of the day you can recognize who that individual is.鈥�
Instead, Brown said Find鈥檚 service is more akin to 鈥減seudonymization,鈥� whereby businesses and users mask certain information. But she added that this process still must comply with data privacy regulations.
Haghnegahdar鈥檚 firm was working on the Find app before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, but he acknowledged that when it became known that Facebook and Cambridge Analytica had harvested personal data to influence U.S. election results, it ignited further interest in protecting private information.
鈥淲hen you think about it from a data-driven perspective, I don鈥檛 really need to have [this personal info] if my intention is to maintain or retain you as a customer,鈥� Haghnegahdar said. 鈥淲hy would I need your name? All I need to know is your behaviour in my store.鈥�
