Not only your hands but your data needs sanitization as well

Last year, McKinsey conducted a survey that showed that the pace of data consumption per user in India grew twice as fast as in the US and China, the rate of increase was 152% on an annual basis. And with the advent of the global pandemic, India has received the final push that was needed to fully embrace the digital world. Today, most businesses, schools, NGOs, and every other form of institution rely on using the internet to survive and function. With data being the forefront of our entry into the digital world-we now leverage some major benefits like cost, efficiency, speed, and a lesser carbon footprint.

We’ve often heard the term ‘Data is the new oil’, the genesis of this statement goes back in time, when mineral oil was the most profitable commodity and almost every nation wanted it. Today, data has replaced oil to become one of the most valuable commodities of the 21st-century.

There are a lot of similarities that we conclude between oil and data as commodities. For example: when it comes to their usability both oil and data in its raw forms are really not commodities of any value. With oil there requires several stages of stringent filtered processes to segregate it and use its different iterations like petroleum, gasoline, etc.

Similarly, with data, there is a lot of information that is at our disposal for observation but what makes it valuable is its analysis and conversion. Through conversions and analysis, data can be converted into usable points of reference in different fields like healthcare, finance, human, and basically wherever else there is human interaction. Today some of the top valuable companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have their business models structured around the amalgamation of data.

Increasing digital consumers & their data consumption

With consumers rapidly increasing their consumption of digital technology, the data they generate create both an opportunity for enterprises to improve their consumer engagement and a responsibility to keep consumer data safe. Some of these consumer data including location-tracking and other personal information prove to be immensely valuable to companies and organizations to better understand the consumers.

The insights which are therein derived from the collected data provides a roadmap to then develop new products and services or to personalize advertising and marketing. Consumer data has clearly transformed businesses and companies, collecting data has become an integral part of a business success rate.

With so many values attached to your data - a tough question is left to us to evaluate. Do we really own our data in the digital world and how should we as consumers feel about someone else’s ownership towards our information?

To get a sense of the latter question - McKinsey surveyed about 1,000 North American consumers, several questions with emphasis especially on the businesses they trust their data with. The study showcased that the consumers were becoming consciously intentional with the type of data they gave their access to.

According to the study, many consumers were comfortable sharing data with their healthcare and financial service providers, and yet in the study, no industry was able to attain a trust rating of 50 per cent for data protection. The unattained percentage is understandable given the continuous history of high-profile consumer-data breaches. The survey also highlighted how aware the respondents were aware of such breaches, which reflected in their answers about trust.

Data security has received bad press especially in the last few months where “securing” consumer data became a staggering catastrophe. Two data breaches at one company led to more than 3.5 billion records being made public. Surveys show how consumers pay attention to breaches and the respective company’s reaction to the breach, which is why stakes get higher for companies that focus on handling consumer data.

Data breaches and their repercussion on companies

Today, we’ve finally reached a point where all organizations irrespective of their sectors understand the value of data. Data has become a primary asset found at the core of most business Data helps the decision-makers of a firm conceive insights into every aspect of their function and thanks to technology the procurement of data is enabled through survey research to enable organizations that belong to the large, medium and small categories.

These organizations can then churn these data into insights that help them with new positioning, messaging, chalk out demographics of their current customer base, psychographics of their employees. The focus on data has shifted from its collection to its interpretation and finally, it’s usage. The ongoing pandemic has flipped how businesses operate especially since the surge of remote working.

Approximately 60% of businesses wind up within six months of a data breach for they are forced to spend long months losing money, fighting legal battles, and enduring major reputation crises. Living in this digital immersed world, we’ve all plummeted into a critical stage of protecting our data. For now, until crystalized rules form- the best way to protect and sanitize your data is to encrypt it with keys that are always controlled by the owner of the data.

The future of security is Blockchain

With the advent of Blockchain, user-owned internet can be bootstrapped on the distributed networks which are decentralized and trust-less. The World Economic Forum predicts that 10% of the global GDP which is approximately $7.8 trillion will be stored on the blockchain in less than 10 years. By using apps running on this network helps you to own your identity and data.

The applications provide you with keys that are issued by a decentralized system that is known only to you. The goal of the user-owned internet to provide true data ownership and data privacy. With the inflection point of these applications- data breaches and data leaks would be the troubles of the past. Blockchain as a protocol will facilitate this repair of the web for creating a user-owned internet. Blockstack's blockchain enables data ownership and privacy in the data collection space and projects like Blockstack.org are driving the change of the hour for user-owned internet.

Wilson Bright, Co-Founder, BlockSurvey