Becoming Aware

Last week I was asked why we should be wary about sharing our data (the article appears in today’s CityAM). This jarred with me, not because personal data is scary but because we need to move beyond fear.  It’s time for us all to go beyond being wary about our personal data and become aware.

Most of us now realise that that our data has immense value to global corporations.   Personal data has quickly become the worlds most valuable asset. In a single decade companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have become the worlds most valuable companies.  There are many more companies that use our data that we’ve never heard of, thousands of them (and many of them are less than ethical with it). We have reached a tipping point. The worlds economy now relies on personal data. Data is Information, information is knowledge and knowledge is power.

The amount of data about us that we imagine is out there is really just the tip of the iceberg. From advertising to market research to credit checking, there are hundreds of existing markets where our personal data is traded.

What Citizenme does is enable us all to tap into these markets.  Now we can securely and privately gather our own personal data onto our smartphones and use it on own terms, as we choose. You are in control. Of course gathering data is just the first step, data on it’s own is generally pretty meaningless. It’s the information you create from it that has value. So we provide a personal A.I. which can link different different bits of your data and provide private personal insights, information and intelligence.  This new knowledge becomes powerful to us on it’s own as allows us to better understand ourselves. It also becomes very valuable to others.

We Citizens are now able to start taking our rightful share of this value as and when we wish. As we become aware of this, we can all ‘out-compete’ the bad guys who deal in our data – importantly – without needing to reveal who we actually are. If we can get this right, the bad markets will disappear and the good ones will become more ethical, more efficient and more valuable. Everybody wins except the bad guys.

We’re starting simple with the Market Research market (no more survey spam!) and we will then progress to unlock additional markets for you from there.  The more citizens there are, the faster we can do this for you. You can help by encouraging friends to download the Citizenme app and help us all make the world a better place, faster.

There is immense value waiting to be unlocked by us all once we reclaim ownership of our data. Which is after all as it should be: It’s you who creates the data in the first place. Your data is a reflection of you. Who should own it?