WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, Canada (www.ipc.on.ca), today released a ground-breaking paper about the rise of personal data companies that help individuals take control of and directly benefit from the growing amount of data about them and their lives.
Entitled Privacy by Design and the Emerging Personal Data Ecosystem, the paper features Personal (www.personal.com) as a case study of a data vault and personal network for consumers, as well as a platform for developers and companies, that has successfully embedded “privacy by design” into its technology, business and legal framework and practices. Personal is the first commercially available service to give individuals the ability to securely store, share and reuse all the important data, notes and files in their lives, including through private, secure connections with trusted people, apps and organizations.
“Commissioner Cavoukian’s paper underscores the tremendous opportunities and benefits that come with giving people true control over their information in the digital world. At Personal, privacy by design is central to our platform and company, and we expect an even more robust personal data ecosystem to emerge as this kind of user-centric model becomes the norm,” said Personal co-founder and CEO Shane Green, who wrote the paper’s Foreword. “I can think of no better or more esteemed person to author this study than Commissioner Cavoukian, whose record of leadership on privacy as a scholar, advocate and regulator is renowned.”
“Privacy is all about control – that is why I am taken with the promise of the emerging personal data ecosystem. New technologies, such as the Personal Data Vault, give individuals a central point of control for their personal information and the ability to decide what information to share, with whom, and under what conditions,” Commissioner Cavoukian said. “I applaud companies such as Personal for their leadership in taking a Privacy by Design approach. I thank them for sharing their experience for others to follow in proactively embedding the strongest privacy protection possible into their designs.”
The paper describes the personal data sector and the benefits of treating personal information as a new asset class. Privacy by Design was unanimously approved as an international framework for privacy protection in 2010 and has been recommended by many regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission in the United States.
To see Commissioner Cavoukian’s video about the paper, please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYt3RZysfzk&feature=youtu.be. The full paper may be found at http://privacybydesign.ca/content/uploads/2012/10/pbd-pde.pdf.
About Personal
Personal (www.personal.com) gives individuals a vault to securely import, store, share and reuse all the important data, notes and files in their lives at home and at work, including through private, secure connections with trusted people, apps and companies. Built on a privacy- and security-by-design platform, Personal helps individuals to properly leverage their data so they can realize the most value from it -- all with the peace of mind that the data in their vault remains legally theirs, they always know who can access it, and it can't be shared without their permission. www.twitter.com/personal.
About the IPC
The Information and Privacy Commissioner is appointed by, and reports to, the Ontario Legislative Assembly, and is independent of the government of the day. The Commissioner's mandate includes overseeing the access and privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as well as the Personal Health Information Protection Act, which applies to both public and private sector health information custodians. A vital component of the Commissioner's mandate is to help educate the public about access and privacy issues. For more information, please visit www.ipc.on.ca.