Regain Control of Your Digital Identity

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Stop oversharing personal data by logging into platforms with social media credentials

If your identity is going to be monetized by third parties, you should be explicitly aware of how, with whom and to what extent the information is utilized.

Photo by Rishi Deep on Unsplash

The typical defense of the current status quo, where social networks and commercial services monetize your personal digital information, is that:

i) Users volunteer to use the service(s)

ii) Certain use-cases streamline use of additional services (i.e. Login with Facebook functionality)

iii) People have come to expect free and discounted services

To address each of the primary issues above:

i) Users volunteer to use the service(s):

Once certain platforms reach a critical mass, choosing to not use the platform or service can exclude individuals from participating in our digital society. For example, if someone was uncomfortable with Facebook’s data retention, tracking, monetization and ad targeting system, they could in theory opt out of the service. However, the social downside for many individuals is too extensive to justify.

Few people are willing to sever convenient and expected social interactions due to a service’s ad targeting systems and user data sharing policies. Moreover, once we examine the holdings of the largest technology companies, Facebook owns Instagram, Alphabet owns Google, Google products include gmail, google docs and calendar, Apple controls the content on users’ iPhones and access to both the App Store and iTunes, Amazon owns everything from your digital reading library (i.e. Kindle), to grocery stores and pharmacies, resisting authorizing the use of one’s personal digital information begins to look at best eccentric and worst, entirely impractical.

XKCD: Opinions on Internet Privacy 1269

ii) Certain use-cases streamline use of additional services (i.e. Login with Facebook functionality)

While we may not want to forgo participating in the 21st century, that doesn’t mean we can’t reverse the trend of oversharing personal data.

For example, Login with SelfKey, which provides one-click OAuth login, is part of the SelfKey Identity Wallet product suite. Currently, the SelfKey Identity Wallet enables individuals to securely store personal data and digital assets on their local machine. Soon, SelfKey Wallet users will be able to not only safely send and receive digital assets, but securing login to third party services, via Login with SelfKey.

“Convenience of one-click login, must not come at the price of unnecessarily oversharing personal data”

Perhaps most critically, SelfKey Wallet users will have complete control as to the scope of what personal information they share and with whom. Convenience of one-click login, must not come at the price of unnecessarily oversharing personal data. Perhaps a Login with SelfKey user doesn’t want to share their social network details or browser history signing up for and using a new service. Likewise, there’s no need to send your browser and application history back to social media platforms, furthering the problem of unnecessarily oversharing personal information — which get repackaged, targeted or utilized as a digital commodity.

iii) People have come to expect free and discounted services

Stop feeding the beast! Altering industry expectations of who should be in control of individual personal information is the best way to destroy the pernicious, loss-of-privacy, feedback loop. While we can’t prevent Facebook, Twitter or Google from tracking what you do while utilizing their services, you can start to control what is shared with them while privately using other services. Login with SelfKey and other Digital Identity Wallets are altering the norm.

There’s an overall shift in the digital ecosystem, with a focus on user privacy, security and requesting user consent before using their personal information.

Brave, a privacy focused web browser, compensates users for viewing ads. Brave is a massive step in the right direction, that deliberately involves and expressly compensates individuals for participating in their ad targeting system. Another example of the growing shift is DuckDuckGo, a privacy focused search engine, which has made tremendous technical strides, providing additional privacy-focused consumer choices.

With enhanced consumer choice, the future is bright indeed!

Clap, like and share the article if you want to further consumer protection, enhance individual privacy and eliminate the oversharing of personal digital information! Thanks for reading!

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