Cufflink - Secure and Share Personal Information

The project aims to redress the balance of Personal Information (PI) control and management away from large multinationals and put it back in the hands of the people who own it.

Whenever someone uses an App or visits a website, their device can send out Personal Information including device IDs, location and browsing information to thousands of AdTech companies.

In June 2019, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office found that the £1.5bn ad-tech industry, underpinned by Google, Facebook and other billion-dollar companies, was operating illegally. According to a damning report from the UK's data protection regulator, a report reviewing how adverts across the web are bought and sold in real-time auctions, it was found that personal Information is widely used in the process without any consent (ICO, 2019).

People have accepted the sharing of PI with online companies in return for free access or use of sites or Apps. As the use and value of their personal information continues to grow, consumers are adapting their online habits, becoming more careful and increasingly wary of what, with whom and why they share it. Additionally, advances in the use of 5G + Augmented Reality, Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and Facial Recognition all stand to exacerbate the issue with the the EU already planning sweeping regulatory changes in response (ft.com, 2019)

Considering this increasingly data privacy conscious environment, there is an opportunity to create a mutually beneficial relationship between individuals and organisations by bringing benefits to both parties, underpinned by Blockchain and distributed storage technologies.

Cufflink will do this by developing a free, easy-to-use, safe and trustworthy App for individuals to store, access and (should they wish) share their Personal Information.

Organisations will likewise have access to a more secure, transparent and accurate way of managing PI via a complimentary SaaS (Software as a Service) application and framework, thus easing the associated risks, regulatory burden and, ultimately, saving money.

They will store only a reference to an Individual (rather than the raw PI) thus mitigating both data loss penalties and regulatory compliance costs in classifying, updating and cleansing their data.

By collaborating alongside world leading authorities on data privacy from Bangor University we aim to ensure and develop an ethically informed and privacy-centric application with the aim of providing Individuals with a clear choice, and indeed defined standard, as to how they will in future manage, share and control their personal information.