Concerns around data privacy are rising, and blockchain is the solution

Today’s consumers are willing to trade their data for personalization but have fast-growing concerns about data privacy. In a survey from a digital security and credential issuance company Entrust, only 21% of the respondents trust established global brands to keep their personal information secure.

As data privacy pressure on Big Tech increases, these companies are starting to make significant investments in security solutions.

Last year, as more and more people spent time at home due to COVID-19 lockdowns, internet usage went up. And as usage has gone up, so too has consumer awareness of how data could be used or misused. For example, a recent survey from Startpage, a privacy-focused search engine company, found that 62% of Americans have become more aware of how their data is used online, including ad targeting based on their browsing history and location.

With growing concern over how companies collect data, new laws are evolving rapidly in the United States and abroad to address these concerns. In 2016, the European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation. Two years later, California signed into law the California Consumer Privacy Act, the most robust state-level privacy legislation in history. Since then, Virginia is the only other U.S. state that has successfully passed a comprehensive bill, the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act.

With more states looking to add consumer privacy protection laws, it’s clear that user opinions and policies are shifting. That said, data privacy and how it’s protected is incredibly complex, and these toothless bills could have the opposite effect — giving consumers the confidence that their data is protected when, in fact, it often is not.

When 2020 began, millions of people moved their lives online — went to school remotely and attended virtual happy hours — exposing more personal data to a barely regulated internet. Not only did people integrate more data collection into their daily lives, but they were also led to believe that location tracking could have public health benefits.

Thanks to COVID-19, the depth of our data-sharing deficiencies have been exposed. As we move forward, everyone must raise awareness and promote the best practices in privacy and data protection.

As consumer expectations continue to drive privacy scrutiny, there is an opportunity to lead the pack in this evolving area, but with new entrants primed to enter the market, that opportunity will not last very long. According to Crunchbase, investors pumped $7.8 billion into cybersecurity firms last year, a 22% increase from 2019 to 2020, and this year the number is even higher after just six months, surpassing the $9 billion mark.

With data ownership top-of-mind, let’s take a look at the startups paving the way for a post-pandemic world. From personal data scrubbing to business-focused software meant to help companies comply with the law, these five startups are helping users to take back control and ownership.

OpenMined is an open-source community, and the company sees its goal in making the world more privacy-preserving by lowering the barrier to entry to private AI technologies.