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Land up at any real estate portal today to check out a property and you will probably have to part with your personal information to be able to call an agent.
But once you have the agent's/broker's number, (which will go unanswered half of the time or will result in a total blank) what happens to your personal information?
First, a computer software (oh, AI enabled) puts you on a 'Hot List', which is used by the company's top sales teams. When they realise you're not interested in anything they have to offer, the software moves you to a 'Cold List', which is used by new sales folk joining the company every quarter or so.
The result? Annoying phone calls and text messages guaranteed for a lifetime.
Ignoring The Legal Pitfalls
Then why not simply stop collecting that data from you? That's because your personal information is often required for software, when using proptech, to function accurately and to improve algorithms, consumer experience and product functionality.
Plus, there's more. Security breaches and the resulting information leaks are a constant and increasingly frequent risk to storing data and Indian proptech firms have faced this threat at multiple levels in the past, mostly unknown to you.
In fact, over 11.5 lakh incidents of cyberattacks were tracked and reported to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) in 2021.
There exist a range of issues relating to the use of technology in relation to property, and if not properly addressed, these issues could stop a proptech firm dead in its tracks and the clueless user exposed to malpractices and fraud.
That effectively means that the 'proptech' bit would be dead in the water without your data.
And, a big mistake that proptech players may be making when collecting data, is failing to either appreciate or truly understand the type or sensitivity of the information they are collecting.
And The Risk Of Data Leakage
In One Sip?