Sham Kashikar, Executive AI Advisor and Chief Data and Analytics Officer at The AIAG, speaks with Derek Strauss, Gavroshe Founder, in a video interview about building trust for sustainable data ecosystems and responsible data sharing.

Building Trust for Sustainable Data Ecosystems: Challenges and Enablers

According to Kashikar, one of the key challenges in the journey of building a sustainable ecosystem is trust.

“It is very difficult to build a sustainable ecosystem. The business benefits are very clear, people understand they can achieve business goals or benefits, but despite that, there is a lot of hesitance in participating in the data sharing program.”

Kashikar emphasizes that trust issues manifest in multiple dimensions:

• Privacy and compliance: Concerns about protecting individual and customer data.
• Competitive sensitivity: Reluctance to share information with partners — or even competitors — based on the nature of the data-sharing objectives.

Beyond trust, Kashikar points to the technical challenges involved in data sharing. These include issues of security, system interoperability, and scalability. He adds, “Different companies have different systems and technologies, so how do you share the data in a consistent, secure, and scalable way?”

However, Kashikar notes that evolving platforms are helping overcome many of these hurdles. These platforms offer:

• Fine-grained control over data sharing
• Built-in security and compliance mechanisms
• The ability to focus on business outcomes rather than technical and governance barriers

“The ability to define exactly what you want to share and with whom, backed by robust security and compliance mechanisms from platform vendors, can help focus on the actual business outcomes.”

If done right, data sharing becomes more than a technical initiative; it becomes a strategic business enabler.

Responsible data sharing: Balancing insights with privacy and trust

Showcasing how data sharing can be done responsibly and effectively, Kashikar points to leading examples in the advertising world — particularly the practices of Meta and Google.

These tech giants work with a wide range of advertisers, including major brands, who rely on the platforms to promote their products and track the return on investment (ROI) of their ad spend.

To support their customers, Meta and Google aim to provide deeper understanding of industry-specific insights, helping organizations benchmark themselves and refine their advertising strategies, says Kashikar.

“They want to help the customer understand what is happening in their industry vertical and that can benefit a lot of organizations and optimize their ROI and make sure that they’re issuing the business benefit as a part of their advertising plan.”

However, Kashikar highlights the critical challenge of sharing such insights without breaching confidentiality or compliance boundaries. Directly disclosing competitor activity would be highly problematic, he adds.

To overcome this, companies like Meta and Google share aggregated industry-level insights rather than data from individual customers. This approach enables valuable benchmarking while maintaining privacy and trust.

Thereafter, Kashikar emphasizes that data masking plays a crucial role in building trust.

“You cannot identify customers or their personal information. Masking the data is an important thing and that’s where you can gain trust.”

In addition to aggregation and masking, Kashikar highlights the importance of stringent access controls and well-defined review processes as essential pillars for effective data-sharing initiatives. “What also works well is having a robust access mechanism in place, clearly defining who gets access, how that access is controlled, and the processes for reviewing it regularly. Putting such measures in place is critical to the success of these efforts,” concludes Kashikar.

CDO Magazine appreciates Sham Kashikar for sharing his insights with our global community.