Digital ID Coach

U.S., Canadian firms: worlds apart on Privacy (2004)

May 24th, 2004

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Lemme see… customer loyalty or legislative compliance. As a business, which would I choose? Seems Canadian firms go with the former, while U.S. firms prefer the latter. Do the same people that make this decision also wonder why the American “consumer” market doesn’t trust many of the companies they do business with?

The study, the first to compare the corporate privacy practices of comparable Canadian and U.S. firms, found that Canadian businesses see their privacy practices as an opportunity to improve relations with customers, while their U.S. counterparts viewed privacy measures more as a way of complying with legislation and avoiding civil lawsuits.

Indeed, 61 per cent of surveyed Canadian companies linked ‘good privacy practices’ to customer trust and brand loyalty, compared to only 17 per cent of U.S. companies.

‘Canadian privacy leaders seem to understand and respect the need for compliance with federal and provincial laws,’ states the study, which was commissioned by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner.

‘However, they rarely see compliance as the single goal or mission of privacy management (and) are more likely to hold the view or belief that their role is inextricably tied to information ethics rather than obedience to the law.’

Coaching moment: Privacy and self-determination go hand in hand. The question is NOT whether you have something to hide. It’s whether you have something to lose.

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