This week I watched the excellent documentary The Great Hack. A horrifying story, very well told; congratulations to all those involved in making that and bringing that story to the general public.
I’d recommend it to everyone, but most especially those in large private or public sector organisations sitting on large troves of personal data. The essence of the story is that:
That’s pretty scary stuff. The key points made, in my view anyway, are that the products/ services that enable organisations to access and manipulate personal to achieve specific objectives are seen as weapons grade; and that we will see this kind of thing happen time and again unless something is done to change that.
So what can be done to change that? Not easily, not overnight; but it can be done.
Firstly, what won’t work, is regulating to stop it happening; that’s been tried already with GDPR. While regulating may slow down and lessen the effect, it does not address the underlying problem which is that huge volumes of the now weaponisable asset that is personal data sit with large, supra-national, for profit entities. For profits have to maximise the use of their own assets, so are not the right entities to build and guard that personal data hen house. The alignment of incentives is wrong in that model.
So we need to find a model where the alignment of incentives is strong and sustainable. I would contend that this is where the MyData model comes into its own. In that model:
Looking beyond that immediate fox and hen house problem (which is big enough anyway); the MyData model is the only way that individuals will gain general control over their personal data, and not the faux control enabled by GDPR.
Lot’s to discuss then at the upcoming MyData conference in Helsinki, 25th, 26th, 27th September 19. See you there.