How Blockchain is Transforming Data Control

Considering that data is the gas in the tank of the Web2 business model, Web2 has proven to be woefully poor at controlling and protecting the very fuel on which it depends. Over recent years, leaks and hacks on centralized servers have become almost an everyday occurrence – and it’s getting worse. Once the pandemic hit, the sudden shift to working from home created multiple new attack vectors. The pressure on hospitals and healthcare systems made them particularly vulnerable, with cybersecurity breaches up by ten percent in 2021. Then there’s the challenge of data harvesting and surveillance – a shadow we’ve all had to live with since the Snowden revelations in 2014. Legislation like the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to address this imbalance, but in reality, it simply ends up in long, drawn-out legal battles. The latest twist in a GDPR dispute between the EU and Meta Platforms is that the firm has threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram entirely – hardly a desirable outcome for millions of users. Furthermore, there’s a severe lack of transparency with how data is used across the board. Once we hand over our data to a third party, we have no way of knowing how it may be passed on, sold, transferred, or otherwise misused. Is Blockchain the Answer? Blockchain is purported to offer a solution to many of these problems, and it’s true that from the individual perspective, there’s plenty of promise. Encr...