Your personal data in your hands – literally

• November 14, 2017
• StJohn Deakins
• no comments

Why your personal data should be in your hands (or your back pocket) not floating in the cloud

Your personal data is, well, personal.

As more and more of our lives become captured digitally, our personal data reveals an even deeper and clearer picture of us than ever before. It not only defines who you are to other people, but it also identifies who you are to you. Your data is incredibly precious.

Collectively, our personal data is the lifeblood of the digital world that we now live in. Because of this it has immense power. It makes our lives easier, helps us to understand ourselves better, to make our world a nicer place and, even better, it can be converted into cold hard cash.

So, once we’ve worked out a way to collect a copy of all of this data. The next question is, who, what or where can you trust to look after your valuable personal data?

Storage solutions

For thousands of years, we humans would store our most valuable possessions in a box under our beds, hopefully with a lock and key. In the Industrial Era banks arrived.  Specialised, centralised, safe. Banks are the perfect store of value in the age of mass production. In return banks leverage the money we deposit to earn trillions of dollars in profits.

In our Digital Age of real-time connectivity, systems and institutions are most efficient and secure when they’re decentralised rather than centralised.  

Democratising your personal data

We can ‘democratise’ products, services and assets into the hands of us humans – the people who own and use them. Billions of us already carry a smartphone, meaning we have a powerful mini-computer with us everywhere we go. By 2020 smartphones will be carried by most of humanity. For the first time ever, it’ll be possible for the majority of us to carry a copy of all of our individual human data value with us at all times. Accessible at the tip of a finger and at the command of our voice.

Why do we need it with us?  Because it makes sense for us to hold the power and value that each of us own as close to us as possible.

Our smartphones have the computing power and storage to do this with ease.  For backup, both Android and Apple offer gigabytes of ‘free’ cloud storage with every smartphone. A perfect place to store our data, cloaked and encrypted from the prying eyes of Apple and Google. The ‘keys’ to all your data stay safely with you, on your smartphone.  No one should be able to see, touch or hold your data unless you explicitly give permission.

In an age where data is a new form of currency, we can rethink the way that we store digital value so that the benefit flows back to all of us as Digital Citizens.