Feature
Image source : ExpoPlatform
“ The idea of organisers being ‘ stewards of trust ’ is not necessarily a model followed by big tech as it poses a growing existential threat to our exhibition business models .”
future in this area ,” he said . There was also a warning that the idea of organisers being ‘ stewards of trust ’ is not necessarily a model followed by big tech as it poses a growing existential threat to our exhibition business models . The 2021 UFI European Conference in June had first raised the issue on how virtual event platforms use the information they are collecting and Douglas Emslie , group CEO of Tarsus Group , said the idea that VEPs could co-own event data had “ stopped me in my tracks ”. It had been a wake up call for Emslie , he said , and likened it to an ‘ Amazon moment ’. Swapcard CEO Baptiste Boulard had , at the UFI European Conference session , set out a vision – clearly troubling to Emslie – in which Swapcard becomes co-controller of the data that organisers share with the platform , feeding all organisers ’ data into one large database of attendees and exhibitors spanning all events on their platform . “ Every individual using Swapcard has the same account across all events , no matter if it ’ s a white label solution or not . If an [ event ] organiser terminates your contract , you cannot delete that data ,” said Boulard . “ We will store this data for three years and after three years , if that attendee didn ’ t log in again to any event powered by Swapcard , we will delete that data ,” he added , noting that the only way Swapcard would consider deleting a data record is if an organiser provides “ proof that a specific attendee has opted out ”. ExpoPlatform founder and CEO Tanya Pinchuk advocates a contrary approach , set out in the company ’ s Data Manifesto , which believes event organisers should retain full and exclusive control of their user data . Pinchuk sees the platforms as ‘ the processor ’: using data for the sole purposes of their event , therefore giving organisers the ability to delete as they wish . “ The organiser allows users to interact on the vendor platform and if the organiser wants to stop the relationship with the vendor , they can easily extract all the data that they passed over to the vendor platform and move to another platform ,” she explains . “ We don ’ t need the user data to continue to provide the best AI matchmaking . It ’ s enough to get hold of the anonymous usage data .” Elaborating on his position on data sharing between competitors Boulard told the UFI debate : “ Now that we ’ re moving to a community approach , I think that would no longer be a concern of the industry . “[ Our customers ] love AI and they are okay with having us analyse AI across all events . So where they used to see competition between them , now my clients are okay . You know , they all signed to Swapcard , the major exhibition organisers . If you delete data you are impacting other events that rely on Swapcard .” Jo-Anne Kelleway from InfoSalons commented that registration companies such as hers “ don ’ t own the data . I think that ’ s the biggest risk that we have to think about right now ”, and she encouraged organisers to find out what they really want to do and believes many do not fully appreciate what many third-party platforms are doing with their data . She said there was an important distinction between managing the data and owning the data . Grip CEO Tim Groot explained his platform ’ s position was similar to ExpoPlatform ’ s , in that the data controller is the event organiser . “ Grip is not a co-controller , Grip is a sub-processor to the organiser .” And Groot went on to compare the idea
50 — September