  The data revolution in low- and middle-income countries is quickly
transforming how companies approach emerging markets. As mobile phones and
mobile money proliferate, they generate new streams of data that enable
innovation in consumer finance, credit, and insurance. Already, this new
generation of products are being used by hundreds of millions of consumers,
often to use financial services for the first time. However, the collection,
analysis, and use of these data, particularly from economically disadvantaged
populations, raises serious privacy concerns. This white paper describes a
research agenda to advance our understanding of the problem and solution space
of data privacy in emerging market fintech and financial services. We highlight
five priority areas for research: conducting comprehensive landscape analyses;
understanding local definitions of ``data privacy''; documenting key sources of
risk, and potential technical solutions (such as differential privacy and
homomorphic encryption); improving non-technical approaches to data privacy
(such as policies and practices); and understanding the tradeoffs involved in
deploying privacy-enhancing solutions. Taken together, we hope this research
agenda will focus attention on the multi-faceted nature of privacy in emerging
markets, and catalyze efforts to develop responsible and consumer-oriented
approaches to data-intensive applications.
