By Jason Sarfati, Chief Privacy Officer & Vice President of Legal

The advent of smartphones has fundamentally altered the way individuals socialize, shop, and interact with the world around them.  Gone are the days when folks accessed the Internet from desktop machines that stayed put in our living rooms. The Internet itself, has officially become mobile.

While many individuals still view the browser homepage as the true “Internet,” the reality is most data generated by individual consumers is today accomplished from within an application on their mobile phone. This consumer data is incredibly powerful: it reveals treasure troves about people’s interests and habits and makes it possible for businesses to predict what people may want to do, buy, or see next—sometimes before they know it themselves. More specifically, this data can be used to improve ad targeting, develop new products, and creates experiences that will not only keep customers coming back, but make it easier for them to do so as well.

Leveraging consumer data has become essential to organizations that wish to stay competitive. While the world’s most powerful companies may have pioneered its use, it has become clear that businesses large and small must collectively rely on this data to better understand and serve their customers. Consumer data is moving all organizations toward an efficient frontier, where every decision is the best decision—because it’s backed by data.

The sheer quantity of consumer data that has been collected in recent years, however, raises important questions about ethical data use. How should consumer data be collected? When is it OK to use consumer data and for what purpose? How much data is too much data (and is there such a thing)? Who really owns this data, anyhow?

Few categories of consumer data have proven to generate as much interest and debate as location data. The benefits are obvious.  Insights derived from consumer-generated location data can be used to understand places and people en masse—providing timely and critical insight into human movement. At Gravy, it’s already been used to improve public transportation, to understand how people react in the wake of natural disasters, and to build communities that are more resilient. At the same time, the collection and use of geolocation data has proven to raise uncertainty, and due to its revealing nature stokes fears of potential abuse.

Ultimately, we view it as our responsibility as an organization to handle the location data we work with conscientiously, and to ensure our customers also do the same. Read on to learn more about Gravy’s approach to data ethics and our continued commitment to consumer privacy.