Unlocking the personal data economy, with privacy by design
Unlocking the personal data economy, with privacy by design
Published 1 August, 2019
Every company recognises the value of personal data because they want to know more about their customers. In this global competition, everybody wants to know more than what they have in their corporate data set, they want to know where you eat and where you hang out. Personal data can help target marketing and risk management.
Zhu Feida
Associate Professor of Computer Science
In brief
- The issue is not with the technologies that get personal data, but where and how data is collected. As a result, nobody wins; 1) Individuals do not get good value out of the data 2) Individuals have very little control over the data and 3) Companies do not get access to high-quality data.
- The symphony project aims to create a platform that enables a fair and transparent platform between individuals and businesses built on blockchain technology.
- Symphony will benefit individuals by providing a privacy-protected place to maintain their data profile while helping companies with all the state-of-the-art technology in data collecting without exposing users' data.
The global personal data economy is growing faster than anyone could have imagined. The current business model for data is broken – for individual users and businesses alike.
On one hand, users do not have enough control over their own data, such as what data is collected and how the data is used. That challenges their privacy. Users are also not fairly rewarded for their data. On the other hand, while most businesses see the value of customer data, the data they have is fragmented and incomplete. That results in blurry customer profiles, inaccurate insights and poor recommendations. Furthermore, it is difficult for businesses to connect with their customers in a personalised way and track the effectiveness of the connection.
In this podcast, Associate Professor Zhu Feida from SMU School of Information Systems shares his research on a next-generation, blockchain-based platform named Symphony. The platform seeks to empower a personal data economy by democratising and personalising data intelligence, with privacy by design.