Due diligence isn’t a synonym for doing good.
“So many people approach compliance as risk avoidance … if I do X or Y, then I’m less likely to be fined,” says Jamie Barnard, CEO of Compliant, a newly launched privacy tech startup that helps companies automate their privacy compliance, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Just because a business is compliant with regulations doesn’t mean it necessarily engages in ethical business practices.
But companies that embrace ethical values “at their core” – making ethical choices instinctively and not because someone’s watching or because they’re worried about getting in trouble – end up benefiting in the short term and the long run, says Barnard. He just came off a nearly 16-year run at Unilever, most recently as its general counsel focused on global marketing, media and ecommerce.
In other words, there’s a business case for bringing data ethics into the marketing department. In fact, it’s good for the bottom line.
“The reality with both ethics and compliance is that businesses are much sharper, much fitter, more agile and more likely to take risks if they have strong discipline and control in the way that they use data,” Barnard says.
Compliance is a nonnegotiable floor. You’ve gotta be compliant. But there’s no ceiling on ethical behavior, and baking ethics into your business is a recipe for success.
Building ethics into the choices your best employees make allows companies to run faster, Barnard says.
Also in this episode: What piloting a yacht has to do with privacy compliance (quite a lot, actually), what Barnard has in common with Greek mathematician Archimedes (they both like thinking deep thoughts while in the bathtub) and the shockingly high number of websites that pass data before receiving user consent (despite operating a CMP).
For more articles featuring Jamie Barnard, click here.
