Personal Information Markets AND Privacy: A New Model to Solve the Controversy

From the early days of the information economy, personal data has been its most valuable asset. Despite data protection laws, companies trade personal information and often intrude on the privacy of individuals. As a result, consumers feel out of control and lose trust in electronic environments. Technologists and regulators are struggling to develop solutions that meet businesses’ demand for more personal information while maintaining privacy. However, no promising proposals seem to be in sight. We propose a 3-tier personal information market model with privacy. In our model, clear roles, rights and obligations for all actors re-establish trust. The ‘relationship space’ enables data subjects and visible business partners to build trusting relationships. The ‘service space’ supports customer relationships with distributed information processing. The ‘rich information space’ enables anonymized information exchange. To transition to this model, we show how existing privacy-enhancing technologies and legal requirements can be integrated.