MyData - now is the time

It is everywhere

Personal data is everywhere - be it about health, financials, public services, learning, shopping, preferences, lifestyle, energy, media etc. A very long list of sources - that can be especially useful when combined - or harmful if not guided by ethical principles

It is valuable

Personal data is becoming a new economic asset class - a valuable resource - that will touch all aspects of society (World Economic Forum). In 2012 Boston Consulting Group evaluated the value of it to 1 Trillion euros in Europe..... time for action (we need a trusted flow of data). Begs questions: (i) what can be bigger?, (ii) who gets the benefits and (iii) what happens to privacy?

Core ideas with MyData 

1. The individuals should be in control (know, use and way to share) of their own data. Stronger digital human rights moving from formal to actionable rights.

2. Businesses can get the permission to use the data and create a new level of services (based on mutual trust). Moving from data protection to data empowerment. 

3. Data must be usable - machine-readable, open formats, APIs, standards

4. Open business environment - interoperability and possibility to change service providers without data locks.

Three models 

1. The API Economy. No infrastructure - everyone is connecting to everyone..

2. Platform Model. Data is collected to the Alibabas, Amazons, Facebooks and Googles of this world.

3. MyData Model. The individual (or her enterprise) is the connection point (as geolocation) and control point (decides who uses her data and how - by issuing (and receiving) consents - power of attorneys. 

Right to (i) know what personal data exists, (ii) see actual content, (iii) rectify false data, (iv) right to audit who accesses what and why, (v) right to share and sell personal data, (vi) right to remove or delete data (some restrictions based on legislation and common sense).

Big Change

Landline calling to a fixed location was changed to calling a person with mobile. Mainframe computing changed with personal computers.

MyData means moving from traditional data warehousing (mostly in-house data in back-office systems) to human-centric organization of personal data - eventually from all sources that are needed for the life-event centric services. Slogan: Do not service your customer! Serve her life event!

A big and long overdue improvement  - supported by BigData, OpenData, AI and GDPR. Data becomes an integrated and real-time part of the individual-organization relationship. A focal point in new age service design.

GDPR and MyData

GDPR is aiming at harmonizing and clarifying data protection. MyData service design benefits as GDPR strengthens individual rights and trust toward data handling. The result is faster development of personal data based services. 

From conventional to a distributed platform. 

MyData is enabled by moving from conventional to a distributed platform. From one owner to shared governance, from one identity provider to distributed identity and from trust in the single provider to trust in the whole network. 

The conventional is simple (but fragile), does not scale and connect easily to new areas. But it is a good business - albeit with monopolistic aspects. The distributed is complex (but sustainable), has scalability in core (comes with interoperability). It is not a single business but a network - creating new business opportunities.

Who does what?

Four roles:

1. The Data Owner - knows, controls and empowers. Wants easiness and trusted data for life event

2. Data Operator - gets power to act - to find data needed. Wants connectivity to organize customer access to a wide network of data sources, people and services.

3. Data Source - ready to provide data under person's permission. Wants to keep customers, benefit from being the original data source, be trusted and transparent.

4. Data Using Service - developing life-event focusing services by organizing the collection and refining of data from multiple sources by being or using Data Operators. Wants reliable data.

Business case needed

There are 1 trillion reasons for making the Data-driven economy happening. 

Costs will arise from standardization, API investments and maintenance for Data Sources. Data Using Services need to pay for getting the data, build and maintain secure services and invest in marketing and support. The user will have to use some effort to understand new services and pay for it. 

So it should be understood from the outset that this cannot be achieved unless there is readiness to allow the revenues needed.

Timeline.

This will all take some time - but much has already been done. Sovrin is a key technology element and shows great promise.

The next thing to do is to attend https//mydata2018org August 29-31 in Helsinki. 100 speakers...

MyData Alliance is an open community, which advances MyData pilots and shares knowledge and resource. The aim is to develop a national (internationally scalable) interoperability model for personal data management. The alliance is also the Finnish local hub of the MyData Global Network.