Making Sense of Your Digital Ag Tool’s Privacy Agreement
Digital agriculture continues to rapidly evolve both here in North America and globally. Farm data and its value remains a hot topic within agriculture while the number of digital technologies commercially available is unbelievable.
Our Digital Ag team here at Ohio State University continues to track advancements in the ag tech and digital ag space and has found more than 100 companies offering a digital ag tools here in North America as of Q4 of 2019. It is hard to believe the number of these digital ag tools available. One can review these tools under the “Tech Catalog” at the United Soybean Board Tech Toolshed. With all these digital ag tools available, when was the last time you read an entire privacy agreement? Most, if not all of us, would probably say never, unfortunately.
An ag technology provider (ATP) offering digital ag tools and software today typically require the user to sign an agreement that includes a privacy policy within the terms and conditions. These terms and condition agreements can be long and dry. Consequently, most of us just click “I Agree” without reviewing the information outlined in these agreements, but selecting “I Agree” is important as farm data and information is collected or shared when using digital ag tools and software.
The Ohio State Digital Ag Team took time this past year and went through several agreements of popular digital tools. All these agreements varied in length and information outlined. The image below illustrates printed agreements from 18 popular ATPs offered here in Ohio. Of note, most outlined the privacy policy of each company and how they viewed sharing farm data with affiliates or others outside their company.
Here are some summary information related to these agreements:
- Average page length: 16
- Average word count: 6,011
- Average read time (using 250 words/min reading speed): 24 minutes
So reviewing these agreements in detail can take significant time and at some level takes a lawyer to interpret. If you value your data (land, agronomic, machine, weather, livestock, etc.), it is wise to start learning more about these ATP agreements. This could mean carefully reading your agreement, having a conversation with a trusted advisor, or using the Ag Data Transparent tool.
The Ag Data Transparent is a non-profit company that audits contracts of ATPs. You can learn more about the Ag Data Transparent tool at www.agdatatransparent.com, which includes those companies that have completed the process. In this process, ATPs can submit their agreements while answering 10 questions for review. The 10 questions address areas including data type, data ownership, access to data by outside companies, changing agreements, data breach, requested data deletion, data retention, and more. Once the ATP agreement is reviewed, they can receive the seal of approval indicating they have answered the 10 questions. This is a useful tool that can help ag technology consumers get straightforward answers about their privacy agreements that are verified by a third party. We encourage everyone to review the website and responses of companies that have completed the Ag Data transparent process.
In summary, do you know what you are agreeing to when you click the “I Agree” button? If you don’t and you have questions about the privacy of your data, do some digging. Knowledge is power. Farm data is valuable and can provide insights to the farm operation.
For more information, check out the Ohio State Digital Ag website or our ag data page.
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