Data Defines Your Choices; Demand to Own Your Data With XYO

Algorithms don’t know you. But they do know your data, and they make the decisions that shape your life: Do you get that mortgage? Should the resume you submitted online ever reach an actual human for review? These many forks in the digital road are based on the assumption that you are no more than the sum of your data.

In this way, your behavior is dispassionately calculated by code and you are judged, silently and in the dark. This automatic, autocratic process invisibly, quietly opens and closes the doors of opportunity. As Colin Koopman, author of “How We Became Our Data,” explains, Your Data Is Diminishing Your Freedom.

There’s so much of our lives that are woven through or made possible by various data points that we accumulate around ourselves… It now becomes possible to say: ‘‘These data points are essential to who I am. I need to tend to them, and I feel overwhelmed by them. I feel like it’s being manipulated beyond my control.’’

At the core of XYO’s privacy philosophy is the belief that the data you generate is your personal property, and should be treated as such. This means that you have the right to control how your data is collected, stored, and used — and you should be able to revoke that access at any time.

Why should your data be considered personal property?

• It is inherently sensitive. It can reveal a great deal about your activities, habits, and movements.
• It is often collected without your explicit consent or knowledge, raising serious privacy concerns.
• It is increasingly valuable to third parties, including advertisers, meaning that you have a vested interest in protecting your data from unauthorized access and misuse.

As a decentralized platform that allows individuals and organizations to track and verify data using blockchain technology, one of XYO’s key concerns is users’ data privacy and safeguarding their data against misuse and abuse.

XYO has a number of privacy protections that are designed to give users greater control over their data. For example, XYO allows users to choose whether or not to share their data with third parties at all, and then to further specify the conditions under which that data can be accessed and used.

In addition, XYO uses advanced cryptography techniques to ensure that users’ location data is protected from unauthorized access or manipulation. This includes the use of secure hash functions, digital signatures, and other techniques that are designed to prevent tampering and ensure data integrity.

XYO provides a powerful platform for tracking and verifying data points, including location, while also prioritizing user privacy and security. By treating data as personal property, XYO is helping to empower individuals and organizations to protect their privacy in an increasingly digital and connected world.

Written by XYO contributor, Alexander Trigaux.