Personal Data Ecosystems – A Manifesto for Businesses

Summary: There’s a growing recognition amongst consumers that there is both risk and value attached to their personal data. Converging factors are leading to the rise of Personal Data Ecosystems in Financial Services and Healthcare, a trend towards more Open Data with governance, transparency and control. For trusted consumer facing organizations this represents the next wave of opportunity after CRM, and is at the heart of digital transformation challenges.

Consumers have woken up to the risk attached to their personal data. They are also seeing hints as to its value. GDPR, ePrivacy, CCPA and other new privacy regulations offer some policy to organizations but very little to the individual. On the other hand organizations like MyData and Project VRM have been working bottom-up for the last decade championing consumer data rights.

Four factors have recently come together that are now driving the creation of business models leading the way to the proactive management of personal data:

1. Consumer Data: the growing data trail that each of us lays down as we live in the modern world that includes IOT, Social Media and Mobile Apps
2. Consumer Awareness: heightened by the Facebook – Cambridge Analytica story and the increasingly serious trend in data breaches
3. Technology: Artificial Intelligence, Identity Management, Blockchain and Cloud and Edge computing are now accessible and affordable at-scale
4. Privacy Regulation: GDPR, ePrivacy and CCPA are a few of the governance frameworks being put in place to regulate the movements of personal data

For organizations that hold the trust of retail customers with respect to their data there is game-changing business opportunity. A proactive stance on personal data is at the heart of digital transformation that challenges legacy business processes. Organizations including financial services companies, telecommunications companies, and healthcare providers already manage sensitive transactional data on behalf of their customers. For these organizations privacy regulation can be an opportunity rather than a compliance burden.

Tomorrow’s business leaders have embarked or are embarking on their digital transformation journeys. For those organizations we have written a short Manifesto that defines their place in the emerging world of personal data ecosystems.

PERSONAL DATA ECOSYSTEMS

Purpose

To enable the collection and authorized sharing of personal data between trusted organizations with the same mobility, transparency and governance we apply to currency.

The Manifesto

Consumers entrust increasingly intimate data to a growing number of providers. With that, comes a new opportunity.

This data flowing within a single organization has value. This data flowing around a network of organizations has even greater value.

And when this data is held securely with its owner’s permission at its original source and then shared, there’s value to both the organizations and the individual.

But data cannot flow freely without control. Without governance and transparency the risk of malevolence escalates. And when security is breached it creates fear. People know their data is out there, but can’t be bothered to regain control themselves. Overcoming this apathy is a major challenge.

So, what if we create the technology infrastructure that allows this personal data to behave like money?

To enable the management and authorized sharing of personal data between trusted organizations. With the same mobility, transparency and governance we apply to currency.

What if we develop a new way to form deeper relationships with the consumer? Built on trust, governed by law and enabled by technology.

Opening personal data opportunities for the future. This is our purpose. These are Personal Data Ecosystems.