Issues in the design of personal data service

Abstract

As the people increasingly use online services, as they store data themselves, and in particular as more and more detailed data is automatically collected about their behaviour and context they leave these traces of information, which can be called "personal data". Personal data is precious for businesses and governments as it gives opportunity for social and economic value creation. In particular, it is most precious to the people themselves. In the future people and their lives and "value" will be inferred from such data. Usage of this data causes concerns that are related to the ownership of data and the privacy to occur. "Who owns the data?" and "What rights does ownership imply?" are two major questions with lack of clear answers. In addition to that, there is need for clearance of transparency and control of data within the online systems.

Providing rewards (either financial or other) or providing free service are two major methods that are used by online services for motivating users to voluntarily share their personal data with them. All the elements such as the prize/service, the structure of the data to be collected, how the collected data will be used, data ownership and rights are determined by the service side and the users can typically decide only to accept or decline the offer. This situation causes system to look as a black box, limits the user actions and reduces the flexibility. An online personal data system is a system, in which users are enabled to create their own data structures and store data by using them, as well as having full ownership of their data by being able to share them privately or publicly and even make them marketable can greatly increase the user role and motivation in generating and sharing their personal data. This thesis aims to reveal the important concerns in designing such online service by researching the existing and lacking functionalities, privacy and data ownership in existing services. The main contribution is to indicate the requirements and building a prototype of this system.