Last Wednesday we had Emiel Kanters from Qantel star as a guest speaker at the lab. He was telling us about our edentity (your online identity) and how we currently are not in control of our own data or as he calls it edentity. This quickly turned into a vivid debate where slowly the 2 sides of the debate became clear. 

One side was convinced that we could live in a better world where we have full control of our edentity, and which companies have access to that data.  Currently they are developing platforms to support this kind of edentity protection which is definitely a step in the right direction. Qiy (http://www.qiy.nl/) is a good example of such a platform. While I do not agree entirely with the way it works I am glad the initiative is there. The first step is always the hardest to take.

The biggest hurdle organizations like QiY will have to overcome right now is consumer trust. Over the years many of the companies that are now involved in these kind of initiatives where abusing people’s edentity’s themselves. Consumers will not trust in the good intentions of these organizations and it is going to take a long time before this trust can be earned.

On the other side we had the people that do not believe commercial companies (and governments) will give us full control of our edentity without this being secretly abused by said companies. They believe that while such a platform is a nice thing in an utopian world, the core business of companies,  which is making money, will prevent said companies from really giving us control of our own edentity back. There is just too much of a strategic advantage in it for them to have knowledge about who we are.

And me? I see valid points in the arguments of both sides. While I believe that we will gain more control of our edentity in the future (and hopefully international legislation to safeguard our edentity’s better) I am also quite sure there will always be companies abusing your edentity. I am not naïve enough to think companies will never abuse our edentity, but I am also not paranoid enough to never trust them with my data. Regardless of all this I am very interested in future developments for better protection of our edentity’s even if it’s just to create a fake feeling of security.

But as Yvonne Bruma said after the LabTalk: ‘The worst thing a company will do to you is try to sell you their product”.

tagged with: qantel, emiel kanters, online identity, qiy, security, privacy

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