Engage Users
Do your customers know your data practices?
1. Have you put your data collection in context?
People are unlikely to remember every detail of your privacy policy. Tell people about sensitive data collection when it’s relevant so they can make informed decisions.
Tips:
- Use icons to indicate active data collection.
- Create permissions panels.
- Use prompts or notifications.
- Provide an onboarding tour.
- Use interstitials or overlays.
- Put data disclosures in email footers.
2. Can you provide more choice and control?
Many organizations assume that no one would opt into data collection if given a choice. Worse, many organizations intentionally make it difficult to disable data collection or have it deleted.
Give people choices and control over their data. They will trust and respect your brand more when you do.
Tips:
- Use unchecked boxes to make opt-ins clear.
- Mark optional input fields.
- Make controls accessible.
- Provide controls to disable or delete.
- Explain data value in understandable terms.
3. Can you make your Privacy Policy more accessible?
An effective policy tells people what data you collect, who you share it with, and how you handle it.
Your Privacy Policy should be easy to search and in plain language. People don’t appreciate when policies don’t explain basic points, are unnecessarily lengthy, or hard to find.
Tips:
- Make information easy to understand.
- Avoid technical or legal jargon.
- Highlight what people care about.
- Explain things people would be suprised by.
- Use headings, numbers and layering to organize text.
4. Do you need a Transparency Report?
Transparency Reports are a useful way to explain how your organization handles government requests for customer information. If you don’t receive these types of requests, it can be helpful to explain how you would handle this prospectively.
Tips:
- What agencies request your customer data?
- Do you notify customers?
- How many requests do you receive?
Resources
- How to design notifications, on Medium.
- Check out our tips to write a privacy policy.
- A Strong Privacy Policy can Save Your Company Millions by Harvard Business Review.
- Building a privacy policy people actually want to read, on Medium.
- Transparency Reporting Index by Access Now.
- Transparency Reporting Toolkit by New America’s Open Technology Institute and Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
- Download the full toolkit.
