Has GDPR ignored the elephant in the database?

So has GDPR ignored the elephant in the database? ‘Personal data’ is defined in GDPR as ‘any information relating to a person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that person’.

So each of us can be seen as ‘bristling’ with multiple potential identifiers, any or all of which may be stored by organisations using our personal data. And to add another layer of complexity, most of the commonly used identifiers, like email addresses or mobile phone numbers, may change on a regular basis.

All of us, as data subjects, can ask any organisation holding their data,for their personal data to be deleted, or transferred, or not to be used for marketing communications, or for profiling, or sold to anyone else etc. etc.

We may also change our minds about how our data can be used, and most probably forget what we have requested in the first place, because it’s not at all important to us.

So, for example, using our name and address as our ID, we request that organisation X does not profile our data, whilst using our email we ask to have our data deleted, and via our mobile phone number then expect to have our recent order traced.

GDPR tacitly assumes that persons about whom personal data is held can each be recognised uniquely, across all the identifiers they care to use, and as they change identifiers over time; and that from this basis rational interpretations can be made of their instructions.

This is evidently a delusion.

As vendors of a technology to build single customer views we know how difficult the identity problem is. The normal ‘shrinkage’ when we deduplicate a customer base across just say a couple of identifiers is around 20-25%; the more the types of identifier the greater the chance of duplicate records.

The technology we have developed to try to solve the problem is called UniFida, and it approaches the question of personal identifiers in a rather different way. It assumes, correctly, that all our common identifiers like email addresses, mobile numbers, cookie IDs etc. will change over time, and that individuals may have multiple versions of them.

So, it stores a history, for each individual, of all the identifiers it has been able to link. When an identifier arrives at UniFida as part of an on-line or off-line data feed, it searches the entire library of identifiers to see if it can get a match. In this way, it brings as much information about an individual together as is possible.

Has GDPR ignored the elephant in the database? To find out a little more about UniFida please contact us. It may make complying with GDPR a little bit more possible.


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.


Are you having a digital identity crisis?

Back in the ‘70s, it was de rigour for cool people to be undergoing an identity crisis, and this involved trying to fathom out who the hell one was, why one had been put on the planet in the first place, and what other people would make of one’s extraordinary persona. Roll forward to today and you are more likely to have a digital identity crisis which involves losing one’s user names and passwords, or worse still having someone else steal them.

The very concept of identity has mutated into a set of letters, numbers, and codes by which organisations can recognise us as unique individuals; so much for the soul searching of previous generations.

The recently enacted GDPR tacitly assumes that identity crises have been banished, that organisations and individuals can immediately recognise each other, and that there is never a problem in tying together all the personal information that lies behind different doors, accessed by recognising identifiers like email address, cookie ID, mobile phone number etc.

This clearly is not the case, and for it to change, organisations are going to have to put in place a much more sophisticated process for identity recognition; something that we call a digital passport.

As we frequently change many of our identifiers e.g. get a new mobile phone number, different email, new tablet etc. an organisation needs to maintain a historic record of all means by which we have previously communicated our persona to it. This historic set of identifiers can then give us the best chance of recognising an individual when they appear through one of our many communications channels.

Developing this kind of digital passport is something that we have made a key component in the design of UniFida, our cloud-based single customer view technology.

Are you having a digital identity crisis? Contact us if you’d like to find out more about how we can help your organisation.


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.


Play on! UniFida CDP signs its first premier league football club

UniFida CDP signs its first premier league football club! We are pleased to announce that a premier league football its using our Single Customer View software.

UniFida allows the club to pool data in one environment, providing technical and non-technical users access to cross channel data and drive their own insights.

Contact us to find out how we can help your company.


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.


Tottenham Hotspur sign a sixth player!

Tottenham Hotspur sign a sixth player! If Trippier, Alli, N’Jie, Alderweireld, and Wimmer were not enough, last week they signed up for a UniFida trial.

Our real-time single customer view can’t be expected to score goals, but it can keep every individual fan in focus, and provide access to what turns them on.

Tottenham chose to trial UniFida because it’s:

  • Very affordable
  • Updated in near real time
  • Combines web browsing data with ticketing and merchandising
  • Provides continuously updated performance dashboards

To find out more and how UniFida could help you please contact us.


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.