Toon Timbermont

Personal Identity Management

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a blog post “Thoughts on Data Privacy and the Penny Gap” [link], which took me to the website of www.personal.com. A couple of days ago, their blog featured a Forrester report titled “Personal Identity Management” [link].

The idea behind personal identity management is that the control over data shifts from the (large) operator of a service one wants to use, to the individual data owner, i.e. yourself. Each of these data owners will have one or more lockers on which they have the control and expose the relevant data when they see fit. Personal takes it a step further: they let you manage your data, not only for you own use, but also allow you to sell your data, withholding a transaction fee. This way, your data becomes an asset you can capitalize upon.

My first thought is that the consequences are huge.

The promise of being able to control who uses your data for which purpose is great. After all, it is private and yours. But in exchange for a real value in return, you’d want to share it (temporarily). Or perhaps I may even win the lotto by just being me?

But I guess there are some challenges that are similar to what we’ve known for a while… Rather than functionality provider, we need to select (and trust) an identity management service provider. What happens if they get compromised? How well will the business model work? Do we want to hand over a key asset to a governmental service? What is a reasonable price for my data?

My second thought was simpler.

Read more on the topic :)

I’ll keep you posted if I get some more insights!