CUTalks is the podcast of the Cambridge University Technology & Enterprise Club. The podcast series for aspiring innovators talks to business professionals across a range of fields, sharing what they learned along the way.
In this episode, the hosts Shreya and Thomas talk to Pierre Far, founder of Blockmetry, a web analytics platform for data protection. Pierre is a consultant who helps people to make better websites, and his company's suite of products is related to data collection and the internet in a privacy conscious way.
Before he became a consultant, Pierre gained a PhD in bacterial genetics, was a self taught programmer, worked in product management, community management and engineering. At Google he worked in search engineering, product management and ads.
He says that consumers don't know how to manage their digital footprint, and any time businesses touch personal data - a very broad term - you have to treat it with the respect and security it requires.
He warns it should not be just a tick box exercise from a business point of view.
"Take stock of what you are doing, and why," he says.
And he warns that a user identifier such as a cookie could lead to other issues - you are tracking users and could inadvertently build a profile with potentially sensitive information.
About the podcast
The podcast is produced by Carl Homer of Cambridge TV.