Jan. 12, 2012—Collision industry representatives recently requested that Audatex, CCC Information Services, Mitchell International and others reassure the collision industry that they have taken all necessary steps to safeguard repairer and consumer information from data privacy breaches.
The Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers (AASP) and the Automotive Service Association (ASA) release_notesd a joint statement on this issue. They say the industry is concerned that information isn’t safe with these data-collection firms.
The statement goes on to explain that estimating and management system companies have in the past addressed this issue. But cloud-based computing has expanded the potential of data mining to include information generated from business management programs or other technology-based service platforms, the organizations explain.
“We believe it is long overdue for our industry to have the express option to either ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ of allowing technology firms to have access to ancillary uses of our data as a point of sale requirement to utilize the necessary tools once intended to aid the industry in running our businesses,” the organizations stated.
“Further, we believe that if a business is to permit their data to be mined, they should be entitled access to an annual report specifically indicating where that data was used, and a list of parties that received reports utilizing data from the user's system.”
