Data Barbarians at the gate ?
Paul Colston takes the increasing temperatures of the hot debate around data ownership
arketing money has been moving fast into the digital world . The rush towards digital event platforms over the last year has seen exponential growth in the gathering of attendee information and event data and that is inevitably shaping the way organisers understand the communities they serve .
But , the rush has brought with it some serious challenges : ownership and standards . Rarely has a topic caught fire so quickly in the industry as who owns the data being generated , the organisers or the virtual event platforms ?
Informa Markets CEO Charlie McCurdy was among the organiser chiefs addressing the issue at a recent UFI Connects webinar and was clear that “ customers own the data and give us consent to use it ”.
Reed Exhibitions CEO Hugh Jones told the same event that there must be a coming together “ to protect the data entrusted to us ”.
New entrants are bringing their models in to the market via a flurry of digital event platforms as they see the opportunity to combine F2F with digital and omnichannel approaches . Jones described the industry as being at a crucial moment as more events take place in an online format .
“ It ’ s critical now , more than ever , that we as an industry come together and that we need to protect that data that ’ s entrusted to us to ensure our 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 .
Above : Doug Emslie , group CEO , Tarsus Group
Above : Hugh Jones , CEO , Reed Exhibitions
Source : Illustrations courtesy of ExpoPlatform
“ 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 , and 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
32 Issue 4 2021 www . exhibitionworld . co . uk