How to anonymize behavioral attendee data in your events

This is an advanced module. Please contact your SpotMe Account Manager for more information.

What is anonymized behavioural data?

Anonymized behavioral data (at an event, content hub, or webinar level) can be viewed as any attendee or visitor interaction that is collected by the SpotMe platform, and that has been stripped of any personally identifiable information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.

This anonymized data, while stripped of all personal information, can still be used to analyze trends, patterns, or performances within your workspace, content hub, or webinar, without the risk of exposing any individual's personal information.

Why would you want to anonymize behavioral data in your events?

Being able to anonymize the data generated by the SpotMe platform for internal events can be crucial for complying with internal organization requirements.

If your event, content hub, or webinar is internal to your organization and the audience is solely composed of your organization's staff, you may not want to track what your attendees, as identifiable individuals, are doing. This can even be a requirement in order to comply with your work council recommendations.

Additionally, event/webinar/content hub organizers or managers (Backstage users) are likely to be from your organization's staff, so you may wish to prevent them from accessing or seeing any of their fellow staff's personal information or behavioral data.

What data is not anonymized?

The data that is not anonymized is related directly to your event logistics, event registrations, and event or session attendance, and also includes any personal data that is shared willingly on the event app by the attendee, such as feed posts.

In the below table you can see the details of what data is anonymized and what isn’t.
Data points that are “N/A” correspond to data that is either:

• Not tracked at all.
• Anonymous by default.
• Required for logistical purposes.

 

Anonymized data and activity challenge limitations

The Activity challenge module works by rewarding points to app users based on their interactions with the app.

Please be aware that if you enable data anonymization on a workspace, this will limit some of the activities that can be configured as part of an activity challenge.

With data anonymization enabled on your workspace, only the following activities can be used:

• Activated user
• Activity feed participation
• Profile photo loaded
• User metadata populated

How does this work in Backstage?

Data anonymization needs to be enabled:

1. At the organization level.
2. At the organization's default workspace settings.
3. When creating the workspace using the wizard.

Enabling data anonymization at the organization level

In order to have access to the data anonymization options, you will first need to contact your SpotMe Account Manager in order to enable the functionality at the organization level.

Enabling data anonymization in the organization's default workspace settings

Once it is enabled at the organization level by SpotMe, you will be able to access the settings for data anonymization, within the organization's default workspace settings.

Go to your Organization in Backstage:

Access the organization's Default workspace settings. Here you will see a setting called Behavioral data anonymization:

Two options are available for this setting:

• Per workspace
  Selecting this option means that Backstage users will be able to choose whether or not to anonymize data for the workspace at the time of creating it.
• All workspaces
  Selecting this option means that for all the organization's workspaces created after this option was enabled, data anonymization will be automatically applied (the option to enable it will not be visible in the wizard).

Remember to click Save to confirm your settings changes.

Currently, when data anonymization is applied to a workspace, it is applied to all attendees in the workspace.

Anonymization based on the users email domain

You can use the attendee email address domain in order to identify which specific attendees should have their data anonymized within the workspace.

This "per email address domain" anonymization, once available, can be applied:

• By default to all workspaces of the organization, by selecting All workspaces in the Default workspace settings and then entering the domains to be anonymized:
   
  
  
  OR
  
  
• Per workspace (you choose to apply it when creating the workspace), by selecting Per workspace in the Default workspace settings, and then entering the domains to be anonymized when you create the workspace using the wizard:
  

How does this work if you have chosen to anonymize data "Per workspace"?

By selecting "Per workspace" in the Behavioural data anonymization setting in the organization's workspace default settings, your organization's team members will see the following option when creating a workspace / content hub / or a webinar using the creation wizard.

For example, when creating a workspace:

Here, at the bottom, in the Data anonymization section, they will be able to toggle on the data anonymization for the workspace that they are creating.

Important: After a workspace / content hub / webinar is created without anonymization enabled, you can no longer enable the data anonymization. Enabling/disabling anonymization can only be done at the time of creating the workspace /content hub / webinar using the above mentioned toggle button. Once a workspace / content hub / webinar has been created with data anonymization enabled, you cannot disable the data anonymization.

How does this work if you have chosen to anonymize data for "All workspaces"?

By selecting "All workspaces" in the Behavioural data anonymization setting in the organization's workspace default settings, your organization's team members will see the following information when creating a workspace / content hub / or a webinar using the creation wizard.

For example, when creating a workspace:

The organization team members will not be able to disable the the data anonymization in the workspace / content hub / webinar, whether in the creation wizard or in any of the other settings in Backstage after the workspace /content hub / webinar is created, and all behavioural data for the workspace / content hub / webinar will be anonymized.

How will Backstage users know if the data in a workspace has been anonymized?

As a reminder, remember that once data anonymization has been enabled on a created workspace /content hub / webinar, it can no longer be disabled.

Backstage users will be able to see in the workspace / content hub / webinar if data anonymization is enabled.

Data anonymization in workspace dashboard

Backstage users can see if data is anonymized in a workspace by visiting the workspace dashboard.

Data anonymization is not enabled in the workspace:

Data anonymization is enabled in the workspace:

Data anonymization is enabled on the workspace, based on the attendee's email domain:

Data anonymization in webinars

Backstage users can see if data anonymization is enabled in webinars, by clicking on the webinar analytics button.

Data anonymization is enabled in the webinar:

Data anonymization in content hubs

Backstage users can see if data anonymization is enabled in content hubs, by clicking on the content hub Analytics button.

Data anonymization is enabled in the webinar: