Digi.me featured in a Sunday Times article this week as one of the “British tech minnows” handing back control of personal data to individuals.
That is absolutely our mission and what we’re about, and we’re proud of our pioneering work in this area.
But what was interesting was the article’s focus solely on selling data, without also looking at other things people can do with their own information, once it’s all gathered together and under their control.
Digi.me, through its Private Sharing platform, is working tirelessly to build a new digital economy which enables more personal data to be shared for greater value with full privacy, security and consent, and where individuals are able to share in its value.
We believe that individuals having control over their personal data and privacy is a fundamental human right.
When people are empowered with their own data, it creates multiple benefits – from better, personalised healthcare to better deals on products and services and better insights into their own lifestyles.
Companies, in turn, then benefit from having richer and more accurate data shared with them, which boosts innovation and offers more data-driven benefits for their users.
In healthcare, for example, private sharing makes a patient-centric model possible for the first time, putting the individual at the heart of their own healthcare. Patients can own their health data and share it with doctors and medical researchers to help prevent disease, improve diagnoses, and better manage their treatment.
By enabling individuals to create their own libraries of data – health, financial, social, wearables, media and more – which are rich in both depth and time, digi.me allows comprehensive and accurate data about a person to be combined with advanced analytics and machine learning in a responsible and sustainable framework. This unleashes limitless innovation and potential for the benefit of all.
These value exchanges can operate in any area where companies – or governments, health researchers, the list goes on and on – want access to data that is fully accurate and rich in both depth and time.
Key to this brave new world is making personal data mobile, so it can be shared safely, securely and with ease, creating new forms of value for individuals, businesses and society as a whole.
Personal data mobility was identified as a major accelerator of innovation and economic growth in a 2018 report for the UK’s Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
We have now been chosen to work as the data facilitator on a major project run by Ctrl-Shift with Facebook, Barclays, the BBC, British Gas and BT on the next phase of making this a reality – the Data Mobility Infrastructure Sandbox, which has Government oversight (DCMS & ICO).
Ultimately, we want to create a sustainable, secure, transparent foundation for our digital lives, where individuals, rather than companies, are in charge of their personal data, including what is shared and with whom.
The creation of value exchanges, as well as pure monetising of data, is absolutely key to this.