DataIQ Awards

DataIQ Awards 1280 720 Claudia Velilla

We’re honoured to have been shortlisted for the DataIQ Awards for Best Data Ethics and Privacy Initiative!

Due to the recent increase in awareness of consumers’ data rights following the implementation of GDPR, this award is for those initiatives that move beyond the current compliance required by GDPR. The discussion has been sparked by the rapid investment of companies in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, so we think it’s a great opportunity to reflect on where ‘customer trust’ is heading towards and how CitizenMe fits into it.

A leader in the data ethics sphere

Over the past few years, CitizenMe has been working hard to create a decentralised data app that helps people take control and gain value from their data online. On top of that, we help organisations ensure that their insights, innovation and AI programmes have data ethics at their core. Recently identified by the Royal Society as a leading example of Privacy Enhancing Technology, we are one of a growing number of organisations aimed at helping both citizens and organisations rethink what data means to them.

The importance of gaining control of your digital identity

Our personal data has unquestionable value for business. The problem is that organisations haven’t kept up with the ethical practices around how their consumers’ personal data should be handled. This is partly because the concept of data ethics has only recently gained prominence in the public sphere, and particularly over the past couple of years as GDPR, Cambridge Analytica and many other data hacks have highlighted the problems in the digital ecosystem.

The result: when we talk about the value of personal data, we think of the value measured from a business perspective, rather than the consumer’s. And this has caused a large imbalance between businesses and citizens in the value created from this data, which means a lack of established ethical norms in data practices. To change this, organisations need to rethink how they approach, handle and use personal data.

Why we exist

CitizenMe exists to solve this issue. We are building a bridge between citizens and organisations to enable both parties to benefit from the insights and knowledge created from their data in a fair, ethical and transparent way. By doing so, our mission is to empower humanity with personal data knowledge to build a sustainable digital world.

How we do it

We have two sides to our organisation: a downloadable app for citizens and a self-service platform for organisations.

The Citizens’ app allows you to pull data from throughout your digital life into a single place. AI is then used to link and connect this existing data to create meaningful and useful insights, information and knowledge about your life. This value can range from better self-understanding, customer experience, life decisions and health – or sharing it anonymously for fair reward, or donating it to a good cause. We will never have any access to this data; it’s stored on your phone and backed up to your personal cloud.

On the other side, we have a self-service platform that organisations use to request data directly from consumers for research, innovation and data science. Alongside answers to survey questions, organisations can request from a range of digital behavioural data (from step count, to app usage, to social media data), psychographics and other data types. The transaction is ethical and transparent. We provide powerful AI tools to help make sense of this data, all with the focus of helping organisations better understand the human behind it.

The future

We are delighted that DataIQ is supporting people in data analytics and recognising efforts towards a sustainable digital future.

We believe that being ethical with data is about much more than just being transparent or doing no harm. It’s about enabling humans and businesses to understand and use the immense value that their data can have.

 

Join us as a Citizen or client, or if you have any questions or would like more information, don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@citizenme.com.

 

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