Checking the Lists… Safeguarding Consumer Data Sharing

…”He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good…” This popular holiday song about Santa Claus is sung for fun, and is used to encourage good behavior. But, if you think about it too much, Santa’s all-seeing eye might be disconcerting. Do you want Santa to know what you’ve been up to all the time? 

Similarly, do consumers know who can see their financial data or realize what happens when they give permission to a third party to access and share their data? Just like Santa, they can see you when you’re spending. They know when you get paid… they know if you overspend or not… 

While data sharing enables more personalized products, insights, and recommendations to meet consumer needs, it can also put consumers and your business at greater risk if not properly secured. 

You may know that data is being shared. You may know how often logins are being done on behalf of your users by third parties. But if you haven’t taken steps to secure your login pages with third parties or leverage an FDX API, you may have no idea which data is accessed or what’s being done with the data after it’s extracted. If you don’t know those things, neither do your customers.

Fortunately, thanks to pending regulations in the U.S. and Canada, consumer data rights are closer to becoming a reality. Account providers will be required to give consumers visibility into when third parties (and even Santa) are watching them and a way to prevent them from tracking their financial behaviors. Consumers will be able to grant access to the data they want, when they want, and revoke access with as much ease.

Don’t pout, and don’t cry. Data Access is an FDX API management platform that gives you all the tools you need to keep your users’ data safe and secure. Also, because it’s interoperable, any third party, or data aggregator, can use it to connect to financial data from consumers who grant access.

If you want to make connecting to your customers’ accounts more secure, click here to read more and request a meeting.