Our personal data is our asset

Howard Ng
Usechain
Published in
3 min readMay 7, 2018

Every individual has a different perception of asset. It can be time, property, money, investment, capital goods, people or anything that is tangible or intangible that can be perceived as an economic resource, to be able to produce value or to be considered valuable

Our personal data has become a new economic “asset class”, a valuable resource that every individual possesses, which will eventually connect and integrate with all aspects of society. These personal data come from a combination of different source of information that help to identity us. Such information can be in the form of name, address, occupation details, phone number, identification card number, passport, etc.

In the current internet era, e-commerce and social media are heavily collecting user data to drive businesses and revenues. Information that are posted publicly on forums, Facebook, Twitter and other sites are being added to a database for some unknown use. This can be seen in social media data mining where information on individuals are collated and sold to companies for some marketing purpose.

Furthermore, social media and e-commerce have been constantly improving their platforms to target more specific consumers. For example, based on the data you shared with Facebook (e.g. spending habits, hobby, location, etc.), it identifies your interest and recommend you access to websites using Facebook advertising services. By clicking on the like or share button will grant the social media company collection and access to your data. Similarly, e-commerce platforms will have access to our profile details and buying or spending habits when we sign up accounts with them. Without us knowing, our information can be sold to other companies which are looking to sell their goods and services.

It has come to the attention that our personal data have become a lucrative resource for these social media and business entities.

Many of us have no idea how valuable our personal data can be. In today context, we are still blindly giving out and sharing our information, which allow these corporate entities to leverage on our data, with the potential risk of security breach or mishandling. It is unfortunate that we are being subjected to these large organisations for data that we personally owned. This has become totally unfair and unreasonable.

The idea of self-sovereign identity concept will become the revolution in data management to tackle the current issues that exist in our centralized society. Individuals should have the rights to control their own personal data, who they share with, what they share, without having their privacy and security being compromised. Everyone should be allowed to be in charge of their own digital identity

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Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Usechain

Reference:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/01/23/does-your-social-media-app-know-too-much-about-you/#7dc91380487d

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/20/what-you-really-sign-up-for-when-you-use-social-media.html

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