Finally we’re waking up to the daylight robbery of data theft. Here’s how to fight back.
Think about it: professionals and companies make billions from our data and we get nothing. What’s worse, these corporations only give us limited power over how they use our data. Sure, they ask security questions that feign concern. But when it comes down to it, “we still have no idea what really happens on Facebook”.
Imagine you’re moving house, and you take, among other things, a box of personal diaries and photo albums to a friend’s house. When you come to collect it, you find that the friend has made extensive copies of some of the most embarrassing pages and photos you’d forgotten about and has sent them to everyone you know. Those people have then forwarded them on to others, escaping into the unknown. Then your friend says that— although you can take the box back — the copies are his to keep forever?
We wouldn’t tolerate it.
Yet Facebook uses your data in this way — copying and distributing it at will, not even giving you the respect of letting you fully delete its trace.
Recently watching Mr. Zuckerberg’s uncomfortable attempts to reassure Congress of his innocence only made me think about the many, many other corporations guilty of the same crime. Facebook is only the most infamous case.
What’s the solution? Staring blankly at the screen, it was hard to see one.
But recently, I spoke to Juan Imaz, CEO of a Blockchain company named Profede. They’re looking at how to improve data-sharing in recruitment.
I asked him:
Just how broken is recruitment and data-sharing at the moment and what solutions do you offer?
Firstly, he confirmed what I knew:
In today’s online industry users not only don’t have total control over their data but they are not part of the monetization equation either. Users give and share their data away everyday to use free services from big companies such as Amazon, Google or Facebook and recruitment websites such as Indeed, SimplyHired and more. Data analytics firms get suspended all the time yet we continue to see big data breaches.
But before getting too gloomy he quickly transitioned to solutions:
Profede wants to turn this around by giving the power to the professionals with blockchain and offering the chance to earn tokens each time they approve of sharing their contact details and responding to an offer, so that they always feel fairly compensated for investing the time and effort to study proposals.
Sounded too good to be true. How could this possibly work?
Profede aims to revolutionize this current system by getting the businesses, apps or professionals to request contact directly with the user they are interested in without the need for an intermediary. The requesting party will pay a pre-set amount to the user in order to receive their data. Profede brings control, security and transparency to enhance and improve the recruitment industry.
Profede wants to empower professionals so that data leaks and scandals such as those of Facebook recently can be prevented. The transaction of data sharing on Profede only occurs when one party solicits to contact for a certain amount of tokens that has been pre-set by users and the requested party accepts. Only once authorization through a response action has been made is there a release of data ensuring that the data is protected and that each transaction is transparent. Profede’s process ensures that information is accurate and comes from the official source, the data creator themselves rather than as is the case of many cases from another party and is often outdated data.
Here, I began to think, was why disruptive technology can be the future.
And that I’m not the only one waking up to this realisation.
Read the rest of the interview, and find out more about Profede, here.
