We keep hearing about “data clean rooms.” What are they?
One of our themes this year is how DCA members are moving fast to adapt to a changing data environment. Third-party cookies are going away while regulatory and other constraints change the landscape for how data is managed. Yet consumers still demand tailored offers in a low-friction user experience. This is easier to deliver when we know more about the consumer, and companies still believe they can deliver it with permissioned data handled to a high standard of compliance. But how? Sometimes the answer involves data clean rooms.
A Little Necessary History
The first, and literal, use of a “clean room” refers to a manufacturing or research environment that is literally very clean: nothing gets in (chip fabrication) and nothing gets out (nuclear engineering).
The term “clean room software development” was then coined to describe a technique for writing software by separating the development team from competitors’ proprietary information. This can provide a defense to claims of copyright infringement.
Down and Dirty: So What’s a Data Clean Room?
The principles of non-contamination and separating data sets for legal reasons are both behind the idea of a “data clean room.” Because of intensifying privacy concerns, companies need a data collaboration environment that extends privacy controls to their partners. Data clean rooms do that – they allow sensitive data to be isolated so partnering companies have access only to a narrow field of necessary data. This is sometimes called the principle of “least privilege,” meaning a user has access only to the data necessary to accomplish a task. Processes in a data clean room are wrapped in privacy enhancing technologies of various kinds designed to keep data where it belongs.
For a lighter take on this topic, this fun little video by Digiday describes data clean rooms by analogy to peanut butter in a kitchen cabinet. If you’re looking for all the details, this white paper by iab Tech Lab lays them out.
On September 20th, DCA is convening a Data Exchange Roundtable – data clean rooms are sure to be a key topic of conversation.
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Digital Music Sales, Innovation Diffusion, and Better Credit Scores
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