Is taking back control of our data the real revolution of Web 3?

This is one of the great promises of Web 3: giving users back power over their personal data.

A paradigm shift that could reshuffle the cards in favor of citizens.

Imagine a world where big players like Meta, Google, Amazon can no longer plunder our personal data without asking our opinion but have to buy it from us, that would change everything.

Not only would the Internet user regain the sovereignty of his data, but he would also recover a place in the value chain.

How can the long-awaited world of Web 3 allow us to regain control over our data?

First, what is meant by "Web 3"?

“Web 1 is about reading.

Web 2 is reading and writing, a social Web where everyone can create content.

And Web 3 is about possession, we have the ability to represent digital scarcity thanks to cryptos, something we didn't have before,” explains Alexandre Stachtchenko, blockchain and cryptos director at KPMG France*.

“Web 3 is supported by different blockchain technologies, cryptography and there is a financial part with cryptocurrencies.

The blockchain represents the entire decentralized application ecosystem that is developing”, specifies Sajida Zouarhi, engineer and Blockchain expert counted among the 40 most influential women in France in 2019 according to

.

Zero knowledge, proving without disclosing

If the question of the security of digital data was set aside at the origins of the Web, it is because they quickly became the black gold of the 21st century.

"Those who were building this web put in place what they needed to achieve commercial success and it was mostly based on advertising, making income on the information they could extract from users", continues the blockchain specialist.

 In the world of blockchains, we use virtual wallets, called wallets, in which we hold our digital assets (cryptocurrencies, NFT, etc.).

“Today, I can also have identity information in my wallet.

I can connect to services, participate in financial operations, provide my KYC [

, a customer identity verification protocol] with the identity that I will have registered myself on-chain and that will have been validated according to the protocols”, she describes.

Today, everyone has already connected to a site via their Facebook or Google account.

The problem is that it gives the monopoly of our digital identities to these big players on the Web.

The idea would be to reproduce the same principle, but instead of connecting with our Facebook or Google accounts, we connect with our crypto wallet on which the data is certified and encrypted.

With

, a very fashionable term whose principle is to provide proof without disclosing information, we can prove an element of our identity without revealing our personal data.

"We can access a website because we are of age without ever giving our date of birth", explains Sajida Zouarhi.

Our crypto wallet holds our personal information in encrypted form.

The website asks "Is this user over 18?"

and the wallet confirms without revealing anything.

The information is certified because it has already been authenticated upstream and it is encrypted.

There are already solutions like Anima, the protocol of the French company Synaps, which facilitates identification on the Web 3. By creating your certified identity with Anima, you create a kind of digital double that represents your identity on the Internet and avoids to have to give our information each time to access sites.

It's like a pass that allows you to pass through airport security several times.

It was verified once, we have proof of it, no need to prove the same elements of our identity again.

“Personal data is not readable, it is encrypted.

I am the only one who can decipher this information with my private key, continues the blockchain expert.

And now that I put them on MetaMask [a wallet associated with the Ethereum blockchain, the second largest after Bitcoin], if I am asked for proof of address, I have this information in my wallet and I can choose to share them in a granular manner.

We are not saying that we no longer share anything on Web 3. We decide what we share and for how long.

Better, we could even consider being paid.

Web 3 players are already starting to develop applications adapted to our current uses in Web 2.

Buy data without ever having access to it

The Vetri app, for example, reverses the cookie paradigm.

The user decides whether or not to open his personal information to receive targeted advertising that could serve him and, by the way, he is compensated.

All this, without the data ever being revealed.

“The Vetri app is like a safe.

I never have access to the data and even if I choose to share it, no one sees this data, details Jonathan Llamas, blockchain entrepreneur and CEO of the Vetri foundation.

When a user downloads the application, they are given opinion polls to do profiling and allow them to be paid for their time.

Tomorrow, it will be the same for data.

And it is not because we do profiling that we know who the user is”.

All information is encrypted in the form of X, Y, Z in the wallet.

“Each time an advertiser searches for specific data, he defines the attributes he is looking for.

Since we don't know what he is looking for and we don't know what the user has in his application, we send what he is looking for to everyone and if a phone recognizes the attributes X, Y, Z then he receives a notification.

It's up to him to accept it or refuse it, ”he describes.

In this way, user data is protected.

The advertiser who buys this data never has access to this data, only to data attributes.

But what he seeks is to reach his target.

And this avoids seeing big players resell the data that a user would have disclosed to him, they remain encrypted despite everything.

"Here, we allow the user to be paid when he receives something relevant," concludes Jonathan Llamas.

Let's imagine that he is offered information on insurance or banking investments and that he needs it.

Not only does the advertiser hit the mark, but the Internet user is also paid to receive information he might need.

It's win-win, except for the Gafa.

The reversal of the Web 2 economic model

“We are not saying that we are not going to play anymore.

We play the game, but now we have a slightly more important place in the value chain.

The user was excluded from it, all the money that could be made on his personal data was made.

It's still weird that the user doesn't touch anything and doesn't have a say, ”says Sajida Zouarhi.

And the interest of applications like Vetri is to raise awareness among the general public.

Changing mentalities is the sinews of war.

“The debate will not be about technicality, but about: do we want to do it as a society?, nuance Alexandre Stachchenko.

We can use Web 3 to promote data tokenization [a process aimed at securing data thanks to the blockchain, the user obtains a token which can be sold,

traded or stored] and allow people to sell them.

There is the possibility and the feasibility, and then there is the real which will oppose certain frictions to this model.

It is necessary to adhere to these technological solutions, that the population is mature enough to agree to switch to this era of decentralization and encryption which may seem, at first glance, inaccessible.

Not to mention that the notion of personal data is very broad.

The GDPR website defines it as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" and distinguishes direct data from indirect data.

“Personal data is in itself very ethereal.

Are we able to materialize all this objectively?

No.

We don't know what personal data is objectively, there is always a qualification that will be subjective.

Can the token trace something with certainty that it cannot follow by definition?

asks Alexander Stachchenko.

It is difficult to secure our digital traces, all navigation data for example.

If Web 3 has not yet solved the whole problem, it is advancing on that of decentralized identity and that is already a lot.

* and co-founder and member of the board of ADAN, an association that represents the ecosystem of digital assets and works for their development in France and Europe.

website

20 Mint: "You shouldn't expect to make millions with your personal data", warns Nicolas Jaimes

Culture

The Sandbox, a look back at a popular metaverse that opens the doors to Web 3.0

• Culture

• Personal data

• Web 3

• blockchain

• 20 Minutes