Personal Information Markets and Privacy: A New Model to Solve the Controversy

From the early days of the information economy, personal data has been its most valuable asset. Despite data protection laws, companies trade per- sonal information and often intrude on the privacy of individuals. As a result, consumers feel out of control and lose trust in electronic environments. Tech- nologists and regulators are struggling to develop solutions that meet business- es' demand for more personal information while maintaining privacy. However, no promising proposals seem to be in sight. We propose a 3-tier personal in- formation market model with privacy. In our model, clear roles, rights and obli- gations for all actors re-establish trust. The 'relationship space' enables data subjects and visible business partners to build trusting relationships. The 'ser- vice space' supports customer relationships with distributed information pro- cessing. The 'rich information space' enables anonymized information ex- change. To transition to this model, we show how existing privacy-enhancing technologies and legal requirements can be integrated.