Marissa Goldsmith is a digital analytics specialist from Washington DC.
She works with not-for-profit organisations, governments, and SMEs on auditing and implementing digital data collection strategies, helping them to use the information gleaned from analytics reports in a privacy-friendly way to maximise donations and resource allocation.
When she’s not elbow-deep in spreadsheets (and loving it!), her side-passion is accessibility.
Marissa talk ‘More than a Plug-in: My Journey to becoming a Passionate Accessibility Advocate’
“I had my first brush with accessibility in 2002. My boss was in a panic that our web application was not accessible, and that we would lose government funding.
Since that experience, I’ve found myself arguing for more accessibility in web design and development. More often than not, I lose that argument.
My professional activism on the topic has caused others to label me an expert on the topic. But I don’t consider myself a practitioner. I am a vocal and heartfelt advocate.
This talk will intertwine the history of web accessibility with my own personal story of how I evolved in my views on accessibility.
I will also discuss the role the open source community has to play, for an accessible web.”
Marissa will also be speaking with Amanda Webb about ‘Getting the Balance Right: GDPR and Google Analytics’
The web sites and apps we create, both for ourselves and for our clients, need to collect user analytics for a range of reasons ranging from workflow to user experience to security.
However, user tracking can cross the line from insightful anonymised data collection to intrusive personally identifiable monitoring. GDPR, Europe’s revamp of its data protection and privacy regime, becomes enforceable on 25 May – the day before WordCamp Belfast.
The incoming ePrivacy Directive revamp also renews rules on analytics. This double overhaul creates refreshed obligations for you to inform your site users about any counting, tracking, and monitoring you carry out on your web sites and apps, to provide users with options over your counting and tracking, and to ensure that your data collection respects your visitors privacy.
In our talk, we will help you to achieve a healthy balance between data collection and privacy which respects your business, your users, and your refreshed legal obligations.
Our talk will cover:
- How to understand your audience so that you can understand their data
- Why minimal data collection and retention makes sense from an ethical perspective
- What user tracking is and is not permitted under GDPR as well as the ePrivacy Directive revamp
- How to explain your use of analytics and tracking in your privacy notices
- How to provide your visitors with an opt-out of analytics and tracking
- How to collect analytics with the greatest respect for user privacy
- How to ensure information is not personally identifiable to an individual (Deaggregation/anonymisation/pseudonymisation)
- How to determine a data retention and deletion period
- Dealing with third party tools: Google Analytics as our example
- What other forms of tracking cross ethical and legal boundaries