Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 26 | Page 40

CIO opinion CIO OPINION The implementation of various consumer protection policies around the world – GDPR and PoPIA in particular – put organisations even under greater pressure to secure and utilise personal data ethically. With great power doesn’t just come great responsibility “ IDENTITY INCLUSION STANDS TO BE THE NEXT GREAT FRONTIER IN DIGITISING SOCIETY. 40 INTELLIGENTCIO but also a greater chance of legal and financial consequences if you don’t follow them through. make more meaningful choices whether it’s who they work for, what they spend their time doing, or how they spend their money. Data protection technologies and services should thrive as a result, but we’ll also see companies wrestling with just how to implement analytics and make use of personal data without falling foul of privacy laws. Thankfully, even as AI poses a challenge, it also provides a potential solution – already, we are seeing sophisticated automated compliance solutions powered by Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. Similarly, organisations are wrestling with their own purpose in a world with nearly unlimited data and powerful technology. How do you make the right choices to grow and deliver meaningful outcomes to shareholders, consumers and society at large? Rediscovering purpose in a changing world Lately, we’ve seen a societal shift towards not only more ethical consumption of products and services, but also trying to live a more purposeful life. Faced with more choices and information than they’ve ever had access to, consumers are striving to As the hype dies down on disruptive technologies and they become an accepted part of our everyday lives, 2019 provides an opportunity to seriously consider how they can be used purposefully. If every choice we make is capable of being enhanced with data, and every object a potential source of rich insights, then the limits on what we can and can’t do to create better businesses and societies fall away. Expect the concept of ‘information for good’ to reach into even the most unexpected places as we explore what it means to exist in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. n www.intelligentcio.com