Blog - The Rock Climber’s Trail Guide: Milepost 2
Published: Feb 28, 2020
A trail map, filled with symbols and different types of lines, can be confusing if you’re not
familiar with the legend. The legend tells you what those lines and symbols mean.
It’s difficult to talk about data in meaningful ways without a common vocabulary. So, let’s
define data and the types of data that exist.
| Term |
Data |
| Definition |
Facts, statistics, or other stored information. |
| Example |
A person's birthdate in Rock is considered a piece of data. The Person Profile contains “person data” which includes multiple items like name, birthday and address. |
| Term |
First-Party Data |
| Definition |
Data you have collected yourself. |
| Example |
Any data you have in Rock would be considered your first-party data. |
| Term |
Second-Party Data |
| Definition |
Data someone else has collected themselves. |
| Example |
The first-party data your organization collects would be second-party data to anyone else who uses it. |
| Term |
Third-Party Data |
| Definition |
Data found (and typically aggregated) by an entity that does not directly collect data themselves. |
| Example |
A consulting firm uses birth date data from your organization and similar organizations in your area to tell you the average age of those who use the services you provide. Often, third-party data is sold to organizations for use in marketing, recruitment, etc. |
| Term |
Proxy Data |
| Definition |
Data used to study something for which no direct information is available. |
| Example |
All the cars in your organization's parking lot are expensive luxury cars. You can conclude you serve a wealthy population even though you have absolutely no income data. |