Personal data vaults: Boost your customers' trust

The Flemish Data Utility company and Microsoft are joining in a co-innovation partnership on a mission to inspire European governments towards open, data-driven ecosystems. As early adopters and big supporters of Solid technology, here are some of our thoughts on using personal data vaults.

The Flemish Data Utility Company

As part of the Digital Flanders strategy, the Flemish Government launched the Flemish Data Utility Company in December.

Their mission is to stimulate trust in sharing data by focusing on responsible and secure data sharing.

They will do so by ensuring you retain control over your own data. This way you'll be able to choose which data you share with which organisation and for what period of time. They will use the technology of personal data vaults, also known as Solid.

Accelerated adoption of personal data vaults

Since we implemented Solid technology before (we’ve written about Solid here) and are convinced of its benefits, we certainly think the collaboration between the Flemish government and Microsoft could accelerate the use of personal data vaults.

Trust is crucial when it comes to data sharing. That's why companies dealing with personal data should look into the possibilities of implementing such vaults. With the Flemish government becoming a neutral pioneer in the field, the path to sharing your data in a safe and standardised way within different industries now has less roadblocks.

If Microsoft Azure would include an integrated way to access personal data pods in their services, this would certainly be a huge added value too.

Building your customers’ trust

We believe there are many opportunities for companies to look beyond their own current use cases. As a result, they can even leverage synergies with other partners.

Data security and privacy are becoming the cornerstones of our digital wellbeing.

People become increasingly more aware that in many cases their personal data is used for other purposes as well. Using the Solid ecosystem could prove to be a gamechanger when it comes to serving customers and building their trust in your services.

The impact of giving control over data back to your customers cannot be underestimated in the long run. Doing so will position your company as a trustworthy, caring and customer centric partner, ultimately leading to better customer retention.

Use cases for personal data vaults

Below we have some hands-on examples of possible use cases within 2 of the industries we're currently working for.

Healthcare

Our AMBER application is used by paramedics to register all (patient) parameters during a 112 intervention.

Imagine the possibilities of structured personal data vaults in this context.

Patients could choose to share their medical profile including health conditions, genetic disorders and medicines they use.

Medical providers would be able to access all of this information through our application, helping them to save time and to provide better care for the patient, ultimately even saving more lives.

Add the fact that our systems are fully operating on Azure…

Food

Imagine you want to do grocery shopping but aren't sure which products apply to your dietary preferences.

Using the personal data vault principles, you could choose to share your dietary restrictions in a structured way with any groceries app to ensure you always get the right ingredients. This would also allow them to receive hyper-personalised promotions.

The other way around, you could share your buying history/dietary info with a recipe app. For example, the ‘Zeker Gezond’ app we built in collaboration with the Flemish government, which gives you fresh ideas on how to cook with the ingredients you have bought.

Ultimately, you could even choose to share the information from your medical profile directly with any of these parties, making it a seamless end-to-end experience.

It’s clear that there’s loads of potential in personal data vaults. We’re happy to see new partnerships like this one arise.

We are eager to explore all possibilities of Solid, starting with the kind of low-hanging fruit mentioned above.