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Blockchain Could Help Us Reclaim Control of Our Personal Data
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Harvard Business Review
Posted: August 7th, 2025
https://hbr.org/2017/10/smart-ledgers-can-help-us-reclaim-co...
Companies such as Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are able to store huge quantities of our personal data and profit from it in a way that doesn’t always benefit us. And when those same companies lose our personal data and make us susceptible to identity theft, there’s virtually nothing we can do about it. Several organizations are working on returning the value of your data to you, such as the state of Illinois’ pilot to test a blockchain-based birth registry/ID system. Taking this idea one step further, when you are the sole owner of your personal data on purchases, online browsing history, or mobile data, you can also choose whether or not to “sell” your own data, with rights and restrictions using smart ledgers. This could shift the power of (and profit from) data management from big, established firms back to individual users. This would also shift the responsibility. If you lost your cryptographic “keys,” then they would be truly lost and you would have to build your identity again. Equifax and others have shown the weakness of central databases in the hands of a single firm. Mutual distributed ledger systems have the potential to provide us with identity and activity management, even permitting us to make a market selling information about ourselves, taking control and cash back from companies like Equifax. There will certainly be mistakes along the way, but how can we truly object to reclaiming control of our most private property — our personal data?
Note: This article is also available here. Watch our 13 minute video on the promise of blockchain technology. Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy and technology for good.
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