Five Personal Data Trends and Resolution for 2022

We have seen that privacy, personal data, and the user-held data discussion have changed significantly during the last few years. At the same time, wearable devices have come to the mainstream. People are interested in collecting their wellness and health data and making their lives better. This all is a fascinating development for Prifina. We are at the forefront of user-held data solutions and focus primarily on wearable data. Let’s quickly look at developments in 2021 and the outlook for the year 2022.

2021 was another pandemic year that also meant that digitization saw rapid progress. It also means that more data is being collected and utilized. But it is mainly enterprises that utilize data; individuals don’t yet have their own powerful tools to utilize their personal data themselves.

We also had some other interesting developments in 2021:

• Facebook decided to change its name to Meta and invest in the metaverse’s development. This accelerated many other companies, including Microsoft, to develop their versions of the metaverse. The critical question is who will own data and avatars in the metaverses?
• More wearable companies shifted to a subscription model. Whoop, a subscription-only wearable company, made its latest funding round with over a $3B valuation. Fitbit carries its premium subscription, and Oura introduced the subscription model in October. Oura’s shift to a subscription-based model raised many questions from customers, and its CEO had to resign. All this indicates that we are entering a new era of wearables, particularly wearable data and app businesses.
• Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in protecting their personal data. A recent study has shown that a staggering number of 96% of people don’t allow app tracking, especially after Apple introduced such an option in the iOS 14.5 release. A recent poll also claims that 64% of US adults are concerned about the privacy of health data accessed by third-party apps.

Based on these trends, we can expect a really interesting year in 2022. We can see continued development of trends from 2021 and even accelerate them. But we can also expect some more exciting turns and disruptions in 2022.

Let’s look at some trends that we predict to happen for 2022 in our market:

1. The wearable market will continue its fast growth, shifting toward open ecosystems and app markets;
2. The first user-held data solutions and app marketplaces will be introduced to consumers;
3. Virtual, digital realities and metaverses will introduce better prototypes and the avatar data ownership becomes a concrete question;
4. Investors will become more interested in the ethics and impact of companies, and we’ll also see activist investors in digital services;
5. Digital healthcare and wellness services will make fast progress.

Let’s look at a little bit more details on these.

Wearable market growth and changes

The global wearables market is expected to be valued at US$116.88 billion in 2025, rising at a CAGR of 17.12% for the period of 2021–2025. It is no longer smartwatches and rings, but we will get sensors in clothes, shoes, homes, and skin. Besides, sensors will start measuring more of our motion, blood, sweat, and the surrounding environment. Luxury brands are also willing or forced to come to the wearable market.

At the same time, the market is changing from proprietary hardware, data models, and apps to more open ecosystems where data can be combined from different wearable devices, and there are APIs and development tools to make applications on data.

User-held data platforms and apps

The significant change is that people will get powerful tools to collect their personal data and utilize it directly. Next year, we will have the first services where you can easily and automatically collect your personal information from several sources, and you will start using apps that run on top of your own data. Those apps will offer real value in your daily life, from healthier living and more effective exercising to a better life and control over money.

This will also change the privacy situation. We can conclude that data sharing, third-party tools, data regulations, and compliance are a jungle nowadays. Regulators try to do their best to help consumers protect their data and privacy. At the same time, many companies don’t follow the rules, and we see data business looks like a Wild West. User-held data is the only sustainable solution for privacy and empowers individuals to utilize their personal data.

Metaverses and avatars

Your avatar is nothing without your data. When you share your photos, height, and weight, it can start to resemble you. Suppose it has your internet browsing history and purchase history. In that case, it knows what you are interested in buying and where to go. Or, suppose it can access your social media and communications data. Then it knows with whom you want to spend time and what you prefer talking about with different friends. With your finance data, it also knows its purchasing power. With your health and wearable data, it knows your health and physical condition.

Next year, we will start seeing how metaverses and avatars become mainstream. Some of these avatars will be based on the data that internet data giants (e.g., Google, Meta, or Microsoft) have amassed from you and about you. But there will also be services where you can really own your avatar and keep your data. Perhaps not yet next year, but we’ll see a battle of user-held avatars and internet giant held avatars soon.

Activist investors

We will see how investors and activists are starting to cooperate to get the corporate management to take sustainability, privacy, equality, and ethics more seriously. We have witnessed how several themes, like Me Too, Black Lives Matter, and Climate Change, have shaken old structures and forced businesses to take them seriously in the last few years. We see that most companies must take sustainability, equality, and ethics more seriously. ESG reporting (environmental, social, and corporate governance) is becoming essential for many companies.

Personal data collection, privacy, and influence on people are areas where social media and data companies have faced many challenges in recent years. A few giants dominate the personal data market: they not only pose a threat to the privacy of people but also dominate in their business domain. It is relatively easy to see that data and privacy will become a target of activism sooner or later.

Digital health and data

The Covid pandemic has significantly accelerated digital health care services. Data plays an essential role in health care. Data is also becoming critical for understanding the pandemic and how vaccines work. Clinical trials of drugs and vaccines take quite a bit of effort to put together.

Wearable devices and their data will become more important, although they are not supposed to replace clinical devices. Wearable devices can give additional data from people in clinical trials and help better understand potential effects and symptoms. Sharing wearable data related to personal health and wellness can help detect reasons for symptoms, reveal diseases, and help understand health conditions. Collecting data from many people gives a more extensive understanding of public health and allows for more efficient understanding of origins of different health conditions in human life. More predictive and proactive utilization of data allows people to live healthier and prevent health issues from arising in the first place.

Creating the future

We at Prifina are not only here to forecast the future, but also to create the future together with you. We plan to accelerate our activities in all five areas mentioned above.

Our motto is Liberty, Equality, and Data. As people targeted democracy in the French revolution, we empower people to reach a new order with personal data. All people must have equal opportunities to own and use their own data; data must liberate them to live better lives without allowing others to control them. Data empowers all of us.

We want to empower individuals to do whatever companies would like to do with individuals’ data. It will be the golden rule of the data business. Individuals and companies have tools to utilize data. But an individual always has more data on themselves than anyone else; thus, individuals can get even more everyday value with the best tools.

Prifina offers the Personal Data Trinity:

1) Smart Data Flow to combine and enrich data from personal devices and sources,

2) A Data Engine to build personal applications to individuals,

3) Actionable Apps to individuals to help them in their life based on their own data.

We aim to empower individual people with their data, and we do it by offering the best technology for it.

This is our resolution for 2022.

Connect With Us and Stay in Touch

Prifina is building resources for developers to help create new apps that run on top of user-held data. No back-end is needed. Individual users can connect their data sources to their personal data cloud and get everyday value from their data. Follow us on Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or listen to our podcast. Join our Facebook group Liberty. Equality. Data. where we share notes about Prifina’s progress. You can also explore our Github channel and join us at Slack.