Belgian Region Trials Web Founder's Data Privacy System (bloomberg.com) 9
The Belgian region of Flanders is rolling out personal data "pods" to 7 million citizens in a trial of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee's vision for user-controlled data privacy.
Five Belgian hospitals have begun storing patient visit information in the data pods, developed by Berners-Lee's startup Inrupt over the past five years. The system aims to help compliance with European privacy regulations by giving citizens control over their personal information, from medical records to social media posts.
The initiative counters the current internet landscape dominated by major technology companies like Google and Meta, which store user data across their servers. Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, advocates for returning data control to users through decentralized systems rather than leaving it vulnerable to harvesting by tech platforms and governments.
Five Belgian hospitals have begun storing patient visit information in the data pods, developed by Berners-Lee's startup Inrupt over the past five years. The system aims to help compliance with European privacy regulations by giving citizens control over their personal information, from medical records to social media posts.
The initiative counters the current internet landscape dominated by major technology companies like Google and Meta, which store user data across their servers. Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, advocates for returning data control to users through decentralized systems rather than leaving it vulnerable to harvesting by tech platforms and governments.
D'oh! (Score:2, Funny)
Stupid Flanders!
Privacy is important. Don't abuse it. (Score:2)
There are basically two sides of anonymity. The most "famous" example on the positive side is that there are truths that risk penalties for the person who speaks them. On the negative side, the most common example is using anonymity to do evil or shameful things that the anonymous person does not want to be penalized for, no matter how much damage is accomplished. Guess which side is winning on Slashdot? Do you want three guesses?
Ads Disabled (Score:3, Funny)
I have ads disabled ("Thanks again for helping make Slashdot great!") with a clear check mark in the box. Why then, Slashdot, am I seeing an ad at the top of the screen offering to "Scale Up Your Web Scraping (Free trial)"?? Fix this please. While you're at it fix the font issues too. That's only, oh, about 20 years overdue now.
links (Score:2)
More info here: https://www.schneier.com/acade... [schneier.com] and https://www.schneier.com/blog/... [schneier.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is always the possibility to host your own pod, but I will give it to you that this is not for everyone.
I think this is where homomorphic encryption can help close the last loop-hole.
Maybe cool? (Score:2)
Subscription Free Article (Score:4, Informative)
on the tech (Score:4, Informative)
https://solidproject.org/ [solidproject.org]
"Solid is a specification that lets people store their data securely in decentralized data stores called Pods. Pods are like secure personal web servers for your data.
Entities control access to the data in their Pod. Entities decide what data to share and with whom (be those individuals, organizations, applications, etc.), and can revoke access at any time.
To store and access data in a Pod, Solid-enabled applications use standard, open, and interoperable data formats and protocols."
DIY: https://communitysolidserver.g... [github.io]
Hosted instances: https://solidproject.org/for-d... [solidproject.org]
More about Athumi's implementation https://athumi.eu/en/data-coll... [athumi.eu]