LIVE FROM MOBILE 360 LATIN AMERICA, MEXICO CITY: A panel of experts on the use of customer data backed internal policies to give consumers greater control of their information, citing Europe’s GDPR regulation as a target for companies across the world.

In the first keynote of day two, Telefonica Mexico director of big data Daniel Vaughan (pictured, second from left) said it was vital businesses were transparent about how they employ the information gathered from customers, using it in a responsible and secure way.

“People working with data think there are a lot of restrictions, but we need to be disciplined. We need to reinvent and need to understand data belongs to the customer.”

Vaughan noted his division was based on data usage principals of transparency, empowerment, safety and security.

UberEats head of analytics for the Latin America region Javier Hauss (pictured, second from right) noted the great potential of data management technology, particularly as human data processing can be limited by biases.

However, he also warned: “Every company must ethically manage data”, adding methods including anonymising sensitive information should be “a core practice”.

Bad feedback
Jose Murillo Garza, chief analytics officer at financial services company Banorte (pictured, right) highlighted the need to act on data to retain good faith.

“Companies are not learning,” he said. “How many of us have had a bad experience with an airline and bank? They ask us how was your experience, we say terrible and they try and sell you something else.”

“We give bad feedback but they are not using it,” Murillo Garza added.

Marilu Lopez (pictured, centre), president for Latin America at data management organisation DAMA said she believed information was so important it should be recognised as an economic asset, but also noted the societal and personal value of it needed to be acknowledged.

Lopez warned companies should not “wait for regulation” and instead adopt ethical policies.