Humans of HERE: A star is born

Our first story about the remarkable #HumansOfHERE is a perfect fit for International Data Privacy Day. Get comfortable and enjoy the scroll, as we chat with Aleksandra Kovačević, Director and Head of Product Trust at HERE, about her role, predictions for the year ahead and her recent recognition as a "Data Privacy Star" by privacy platform Privado.

The journey at HERE

Aleksandra joined the HERE CTO office in 2015, where she participated in strategic initiatives and helped develop our location platform but when GDPR became mandatory in Europe, she quickly realized her team needed to address the topics of privacy in innovative ways.

Together with her team, Aleksandra created the concept for HERE Anonymizer - a product protecting privacy of location data while preserving its valuable insights. However, as anonymization was just one of many privacy-enhancing technologies being explored, they created a Privacy by Design team, to focus specifically on including privacy enhancing technologies much earlier in the product development lifecycle, to prevent re-engineering.

According to Aleksandra, one of the key challenges is figuring out privacy risks in seemingly anonymized location data.

In a bid to overcome this challenge, the team focused on developing advanced data scanners to erase any correlation that one can draw about the individual.

Privacy predictions from a Data Privacy Star

Aleksandra was recently recognized as a Data Privacy Star by privacy platform Privado and if you're based in NYC, you may have even seen her face appearing on the Nasdaq Times Square billboard.

Understandably, Aleksandra tells us this recognition means a lot to her, as it identifies her and her team as leaders in privacy innovations of today.

As we start 2023, Aleksandra predicts the industry will continue to focus on putting individuals in control of their data and making data collection and usage more transparent. She also predicts that advanced consent management systems will need to be innovated, with spatial-temporal dashboards that allow individuals to see what data is being collected about them, where it is used, and the possibility to opt-out if desired.

What more can we do when it comes to privacy?

Aleksandra is adamant that it’s all about awareness - both from an individual perspective, when it's about the personal data being collected but also when a company is developing a product. She believes that the more we think about how we can protect individuals, the less we will have to re-engineer to fulfil new regulations. 

Happy Data Privacy Day from Aleksandra and HERE!

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