Only Individuals Can Increase the Value of MyData through Data Combination

MyData Ecosystem = 
Individuals * Data-Sources * Data-using Services * MyData Operators

A news article stands out on Christmas Eve of 2022. “Facebook has agreed to pay $725 million to settle legal action related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.”

The scandal was discovered in 2018 that Cambridge Analytica, a London-based political consulting firm, used millions of personal information on Facebook accounts for voter profiling and targeting to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the U.K. EU referendum.

Apart from the leakage of personal information caused by hacking companies with personal information, this case has a transformational history of maturing the concept of MyData and publicizing the need for regulation to protect personal information by drawing a line on the infringement of personal information prevalent in platform companies.

Even in 2009, companies and government agencies actively collected, stored, and used personal information as a new oil of the Internet and an asset that could create economic and social value enough to be called a new currency in the digital world. However, as platform users, individuals were willing to provide their information for free.

In addition, through a series of international conferences and events that began in 2015, the MIDATA community, a non-profit association that citizens should control personal data, was created. And the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a comprehensive law related to personal information protection, was enacted. And MyData Global, a non-profit organization that supports the human-centered paradigm, was organized. Like these, MyData-related legislation and community activities continued steadily around the world.

As a result, MyData is not simply personal data but is becoming a concept that emphasizes the role of an individual with the self-sovereignty of data and calls for a movement that contributes to socio-economical values.

In 2020 with this trend, Korea revised the so-called Data Three Acts (Personal Information Protection Act, Information and Communication Network Act, and Credit Information Act). Furthermore, the Personal Information Committee, a personal information integration supervisory body, was launched. As of the end of 2022, MyData is being created based on the number of MyData service subscribers and data transmitted, the number of financial institutions connected by service users, and the speed of customers’ financial asset inquiries.

However, the key to MyData value is data combination. Unfortunately, MyData looks pale in this regard. In particular, in Korea, while the Personal Information Protection Act plays a weak role as a general data law, the Credit Information Act, the E-Government Act, and the Medical Act regulate it in combination with dispersion, hindering the revitalization of the MyData business. In addition, regulators are forcing regulators to unilaterally set and follow standards and criteria for business operator licensing and operating technologies too microscopically rather than fostering and supporting the MyData ecosystem.

That is the loss of opportunities and roles to grow as individuals, data sources, data-using services, and MyData Operators who connect individuals to all other role players in the ecosystem voluntarily differentiate themselves while constructing the MyData ecosystem.

The MyData ecosystem shall not create as if crops are harvested when the law is fenced, the tools to be cultivated, and the workers are selected. Instead, MyData is accumulated with data as an individual’s 360-degree life. Individuals should be able to obtain value from data about them and set an agenda using it. Why? Only individuals can increase the value through data combination.