Ze Profile tell us about their aspirations for Data Pitch and beyond.

Personal data has the potential to transform how retailers target customers. However, there are growing concerns about how ad-tech is used to collect and share data about individuals.

French startup Ze Profile wants to act as a platform that benefits both sides: individuals are able to consent to share their data securely and anonymously and receive adverts that are relevant to their interests, while retailers can select reliable consumer profiles.

We spoke to CEO Hubert Le Liepvre about their plans for Data Pitch.

What do you hope to achieve on the Data Pitch accelerator?

We plan to launch the Ze Profile mobile application, which will enable consumers to get on-demand, promotional offers tailored to their selected personal interests.

We want to demonstrate that there is a potential alternative to the current advertising model that is based on personal data collected by ad-tech companies, and where there are concerns over individual privacy and consent.

What shared data will you work with and how will you use it?

For Data Pitch’s Open Challenge (harnessing the full power of data-driven innovation), we are using banking data, which has been provided by Budget Insights, a regulated bank account information aggregator.

We build a consumer profile using expenditures data from the last 30 days, aggregated across different segments such as housing or transport. This enables the retailers to target consumers according to their spending by segment, based on reliable data, without disclosing any single purchases, which protects a consumer’s privacy.

Why do you think it is important for startups to work with large scale data providers?

Startups and large scale data providers can create innovative products when they work together, which can greatly benefit the consumer.

What’s the best thing about working with data?

Seeing how the massive increase in data available, is supporting more and more innovations that benefit individuals, across a wide-range of applications, such as health, mobility or finance.

If you could change one thing about the data ecosystem what would it be?

We would like to see greater understanding amongst individuals about their data rights, and companies working harder to establish trust and to demonstrate what privacy measures they have in place. With this increased trust, individuals will realise the potential benefits that can be derived from sharing data.