Is privacy a luxury good, a luxury service, or something that everyone is entitled to?
Stephanie Hare.
- 2022 started as an idea.
- 2023 helped amplify that idea into what would turn out to be our most impactful and successful study around ethics in the retail world.
- 2024 connected people in the real world.
Our right to privacy goes beyond legal and compliance schemas.
What is the Retail Trust Index?
For those who are not yet familiar with the ranking, the Ethical Commerce Alliance’s Retail Trust Index (RTI) is an industry study that examines the data practices of leading UK retail brands and their impact on consumer trust.
A chance to learn from others, from consumers to businesses and vice versa, and understand what can be done better.
In 2023, the RTI surveyed over 2,000 online shoppers in the UK and found:
- 74% of consumers believe online tracking practices are intrusive, a 5% increase from the previous year.
- 80% of consumers are aware online retail brands track their online browsing history, a 20% increase from the previous year.
In 2024, privacy was once again a hot topic among retailers. Over 40 experts attended the event at Soho House London, where privacy concerns extended beyond legal and compliance issues. Attendees included product managers, engineers, data scientists, marketers, and customer loyalty representatives from major UK retailers.
Attendees from the grocery industry were the most prevalent. Health data, such as nutritional preferences, was defined among the most sensitive data sets.
- Cookie Banners: 54% of sites now have a “Reject All” option in the first layer of their cookie consent banners.
- Data Collection: Most retailers reported a 40-60% drop.
- Security: 10% of brands experienced a data breach (5 out of 50 brands).
- Accessibility: No significant changes were observed, maintaining a constant rating year over year.
What’s next for RTI?
Our right to privacy is paramount. With our most personal data, social content, likes, comments, shopping behaviour and more being used to train large language models, data privacy is vital. Artificial intelligence models that have been implemented in the commerce industry have to offer transparency and choices for consumers.
That is why the Retail Trust Index 2025 will take AI into account as a new criterion for the ranking. Customers deserve to clearly know if their online experiences will be used and for which purposes, allowing them to consent or decline, accordingly. As Stephanie Hare of the BBC’s AI Decoded stated, we need to aim for AI that is transparent, explainable and accountable. Privacy policy pages should now reflect the use of customer personal data for model training purposes.
AI needs to be openly auditable.
But before that happens, another edition of the RTI 2024 will cover the Spanish retail market, ranking its top 50 commerce brands.
Year on year, we see an eagerness to make changes towards ethical and trustworthy relationships between businesses and their customers, laying a strategic, powerful base for the future.
The time for digital trust, privacy, and AI ethics in retail is now.
