Benefits of Consumer-Permissioned Data

(Note: the following is a guest post provided by MeasureOne, a provider integrated with Accio Data.)

Who really owns data? It is generally understood that the entity who creates the data holds ownership. Firms collect, store and manipulate their data for their own underwriting, marketing and research purposes. Personal data is used similarly; however, it is “voluntarily” given to businesses through other means. It’s collected from surveys, tracked with website cookies, or saved and sold when consumers accept seemingly endless terms and conditions. These consumer data-gathering methods essentially take data ownership away from the customer, leaning heavily on businesses to do the right thing when it comes to that personal data.

Consumer-permissioned data (CPD) is here to battle that trend, returning power to the consumer and restoring confidence in direct-to-consumer businesses. Companies like MeasureOne are enabling businesses to access CPD and investing in creating business solutions that advocate for consumer data rights and impact business processes. Here’s why and how they’re doing it.

Why advocate for consumer-permissioned data?

Consumers care about where their data are going and how it’s being used. In today’s data landscape, it can be unclear who has access to their data. Whether they are applying for jobs or an apartment, getting a home or auto loan, or even trying to get new insurance, consumer data often gets funneled from company to company before it can finally be underwritten or used for its given purpose. Because of this, and especially for consumer reporting agencies that regularly gather individual personal data for themselves or other organizations, consumer data collection transparency is particularly important.
How does CPD work?

Consumer-permissioned data alleviates the lack of transparency in current data collection models by asking the consumer directly for their data. At MeasureOne, it’s simple:

• A business requests a piece of consumer data: In exchange for a product or service, the business asks the consumer to share specific personal data, which may include student enrollment status, degree(s) earned, current salary or recent employer and job title.
• The consumer gives access to the personal data: The consumer is prompted to log into their online account within the MeasureOne platform to connect their source data. By logging in, the consumer gives permission to MeasureOne to access his or her personal data for the specific purpose(s) of the requesting business.
• MeasureOne accesses the consumer data: Once connected, MeasureOne retrieves the consumer-permissioned source data.
• MeasureOne provides the consented data to the requesting business: MeasureOne analyzes the permissioned data and extracts the information necessary to complete the requesting business’s request.

By using a consumer-permissioned data model, the consumer retains control over how, when and with whom they share their data. They safely and securely share their information, with the knowledge that only the necessary and specifically requested information is disclosed to the requesting business.

Consumers keep control over their data, and businesses receive fresh data for every request they make.

How to successfully use CPD: Case studies from MeasureOne

SafeScreener

SafeScreener uses consumer-permissioned data to verify candidates’ employer and education history and other background information at a lower cost than their previous data partner. Because MeasureOne accesses job titles, educational transcripts and other necessary data directly from a consumer’s credentialed account, covering more than 4,000 payroll processors and 100 percent of U.S. and Canada colleges and universities, SafeScreener completes background screenings with real-time data direct from the source at a fraction of the cost of the typical process.

Since onboarding MeasureOne for its background screening needs and prioritizing using CPD, SafeScreener has lowered costs to its customers and decreased the budget for background screening all while improving verification speeds.

INvestEd

Using consumer-permissioned data to extract and standardize transcripts, INvestEd is enabled to incorporate academic data as a means to assess credit risk. MeritScore, a part of MeasureOne’s predictive analytics suite, helps the company weigh an applicant’s future payment risk and validate lending decisions.

Since onboarding academic data using CPD, INvestEd has created an entirely new portfolio category, increasing loan originations by more than 6 percent.

Be a partner to your customers using consumer-permissioned data from MeasureOne

Taking advantage of consumer-permissioned data isn’t complicated when you have a partner in MeasureOne. Simplified data collecting solutions save time, energy and money for your business. By enabling businesses to send a data requests to their consumers and connecting directly to a consumer’s online accounts for the retrieval of necessary data, consumers keep control over their data, and businesses keep their trust.

Its integration with Accio Data brings secure, transparent data to the table for the benefit of consumer reporting agencies and their consumers.