Adobe’s Canadian data center empowers customers to build trust into every customer experience
Driving customer experiences is top of mind for chief marketing officers (CMOs), and security and privacy are top of mind for chief information officers (CIOs). As the customer experience increasingly relies on technology, CIOs and CMOs need to work together — along with their chief privacy officer (CPO) — to ensure that the technology infrastructure supports and enhances marketing efforts, while also protecting business and customer data.
Adobe built Adobe Experience Platform to address the growing need for businesses to deliver seamless, personalized, and real-time customer experiences across various channels and touchpoints. Experience Platform aims to empower organizations to better understand and engage their customers by providing a comprehensive platform for data integration, analysis, and action.
It’s built with a strong focus on data governance, consumer privacy, and system security capabilities readily available that businesses can configure to protect customer data — and use it responsibly. These capabilities are surfaced through Experience Platform applications like Adobe Real-Time CDP, Customer Journey Analytics, and Adobe Journey Optimizer. It’s essential for businesses to maintain customer trust and honor consumer requests as defined by frameworks arising from regulations like GDPR and CPRA.
At Adobe, our privacy by design approach provides brands with foundational and advanced capabilities that allow customers to use customer data responsibly across their entire organizations. For example, Adobe Experience Platform Privacy Service is built using an extensible framework to support consumer rights requests from brands across applicable privacy regulations such as GDPR and CPRA.
The data landscape in Canada
In Canada, the first provisions of Québec's Law 25 (formerly known as Bill 64) came into effect on September 22, 2022. The bulk of the act comes into force Sept. 22, 2023, leaving the right to portability to come into force on Sept. 22, 2024. This legislation seeks to modernize Québec's privacy laws and bring them in line with other jurisdictions, such as the GDPR in the EU. This legislation aims to protect citizens' personal information and gives greater powers to the Commission d'accès à l'information (CAI), which oversees the use of personal information by private companies and public bodies. For Canadian companies that are found to be in violation of the new provincial regulation, administrative penalties may be issued up to CA $10M or, if higher, 2% of global turnover for the preceding fiscal year, as well as fines ranging up to CA$25M or, if greater, 4% of global turnover.
Organizations will be required to conduct a privacy impact assessment (PIA) prior to the acquisition, development, or redesign of an information system involving the collection, use, disclosure, retention, or destruction of personal information. Under Law 25, organizations that intend to transfer personal information outside Québec, or entrust a third party located outside Québec to handle personal information, must conduct a PIA. While the new regulation does not establish a data residency requirement for Quebec, it does require companies to consider factors like the sensitivity of the information, its intended use, the applied safeguards, and the legal regime and privacy principles of the location where the data will be stored.
It has never been more important for C-suite officers — including the CMO, CIO, CPO, CSO, and sometimes CEO — to work together on data strategy, and our Experience Platform offerings are designed to help drive that strategy.
Adobe is empowering customers with strong data practices
Driving customer experience and securing a solid data foundation for customers based in Canada is a goal for Adobe. Our continued investment in the infrastructure required for data residency in Canada and the applications that will help Canadian businesses and public sector organizations designate Adobe’s Experience Platform as the platform to address organizational needs around customer data governance, business goals and adhere to evolving Canadian, Federal and Provincial laws, regulations and guidance.
Adobe first publicly announced its plans for data storage in Canada in April of 2022. Now, we’re happy to report that leading brands across industries — travel and hospitality, quick-service restaurants, banking and insurance, retail and consumer packaged goods, loyalty, public sector, and telecom and media — have taken advantage of this offering. Today, these brands have data stored in the Adobe Experience Platform data center in Canada for both Real-Time CDP and Customer Journey Analytics, with Adobe Journey Optimizer to follow. This means that with this powerful data management, analytics, and activation technology, Canadian brands and institutions can now more effectively drive valuable customer engagements.
Adobe Real-Time CDP, Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, and Adobe Journey Optimizer can tap into the unique capabilities of Experience Platform Data Governance to simplify and streamline the process of categorizing customer and account data and creating usage policies. This framework allows IT teams to create, automate, and enforce data usage policies downstream — from ingestion to activation.
What this means for marketers
Working toward data residency is important to marketers for several reasons. Here are just a few.
Cut down latency and speed up performance. Data residency can impact the performance of marketing campaigns, as the closer the data is stored to its end-users, the faster the data processing and delivery times. Better performance can lead to improved user experience, engagement, and conversion rates for marketing efforts.
Boost customer trust and brand reputation. Demonstrating compliance with regulations designed to protect information — and enhancing data security — can help marketers build trust with their customers. In an increasingly privacy-conscious world, customers are more likely to trust brands that prioritize data protection.
Enjoy a competitive advantage. By addressing data storage concerns, marketers can differentiate themselves from competitors who may not be as diligent in adhering to regulations. This can create a competitive advantage and enhance customer relationships.
Build trusted data experiences with Adobe
Considering local data protection law developments is essential for successful marketers, as it helps strengthen information protection, data security, better performance, and more effective marketing campaigns. Adobe has invested in both product and country to help Canadian companies build customer trust, protect their brand reputation, and stay ahead in a competitive landscape.
Learn more about how Adobe can help you deliver trusted experiences to your customers. If you do business in Canada and are interested in joining our advisory board as we refine the data residency strategy for our products, please reach out to your account director or customer success manager.
The information provided in this article does not — and is not intended to — constitute legal advice, but it is intended for informational purposes only.