Discover the Personal Data Economy and learn about Personal Data Accounts and the HAT Microserver youtu.be/aZBLTxS-RQc
### Problems of Modern Software Engineering When Dr Grace Hooper wrote her compiler in the 1950s to translate English terms into machine code, modern programming was born. We have since witnessed the movement from procedural codes to object-oriented paradigms to functional programming. Software architecture and design has also co-evolved to manage and organize the increased complexities of bringing the outputs of these programs to their target audience. We started with silo programs, to a 2-tier client-server architecture, to a 3-tier frontend-backend-database design to the modern-day designs of microservices and serverless functions. Through this history of software programs, there are 2 common elements that are ever present in any system that interacts with end users. They are: 1\. the need to identify the users 2\. the need to store information about the users As we enter the 8th decade of modern software, it is time to re-evaluate how we do software. Every time developers embark on a project, they spend tremendous repeated effort in constructing codes to communicate with the database layer, to handle logging and analytics, and to manage users and their credentials to access the system. Often, none of these are crucial to the value proposition of the software being built; they are only a necessary requirement of software engineering. ## Using Personal Data Accounts (PDA) Personal Data Accounts can alleviate backend labours, allowing the software developer to focus on creating its core value propositions. ### Backend-as-Service Through the use of APIs, PDAs offer the focused functionalities of identity management and personal data storage. In addition, the necessary permissions, contract set up, impact assessment and governance reviews are part of the platform services for applications building on PDAs to help application developers navigate the complexities of personal data handling. ### True Ownership More importantly, a personal data account isn’t just another backend solution. The combined efforts of 8 universities and more than £10m UK Research grants have gone into ensuring that the personal data account is powered by a backend server, the HAT MicroserverTM, with full ownership of the database by the user and full agency on what the user can do with his/her data. This gives users not only storage of their data, but the ability to install "tools" for private computation as well. ### Authentication The Personal Data Account is not just an Application’s personal data storage on the internet. Since it is also a server, it can be used for authentication. Users only need to enter one set of credentials to access applications – via desktops, smartphones and tablets. This greatly increases efficiency for the user while keeping their data secure. In addition, users authenticate themselves at their own servers, rather than logging in with Facebook or Google - enabling an application to give their users greater privacy. ### Users co-acquisition Every business that puts an application out on the market would need to attract users. And every such business would also have its entire user database in individual application silos. Without further integration work, it is difficult to share their user base and under some of the privacy regulations, sharing user bases may even be illegal. Even when developers use Single Sign On systems such as those provided by Facebook or Google, they will still need to maintain their own database of accounts. Personal Data Accounts given to users by applications contribute to the pool of individuals in the ecosystem. Every software built on the personal data accounts will bring its own users, each owning a PDA to the ecosystem that can login easily to another application with the same PDA. Every software application in the ecosystem is therefore effectively a partner of another application, each synergistically co-acquiring users for one another. ## Conclusion By storing users data into the PDA, the access, control and ownership of data now reverts back to the user. And yet with proper contracts, permissions and governance, the data can be shared back with the application, creating a win- win for both. Compliance and privacy concerns are fast becoming a key issue when building software. The next wave of successful software applications must not only be user-friendly and functional, they must also protect the privacy and rights of the people using the software. This new generation of ethical applications are now possible with personal data accounts. It’s the way the Internet should be advancing.
Last updated: 3 months ago
The HAT (Hub-of-All-Things) project was a £1.2m 6 UK Universities multi disciplinary research project from 2013-2015 that created 6 guidance papers on the creation of the HAT Microserver (commonly called ”the HAT) and the redesign of the personal data exchange system. The research spun out Dataswift Ltd, a commercial organisation and the HAT Community Foundation, it’s governing body. From 2015-18, Dataswift built a suite of technology services and set up the legal, governance and economic model (the HATDeX Platform) and deployed the technical HAT into the cloud, becoming the HAT Microserver for use as Dataswift’s personal data accounts (PDA) for websites and applications and issued to indoviduals upon request. The HAT ecosystem is governed by the HAT Community Foundation (HCF) representing PDA owners, Merchants and Issuers. The foundation’s mission is based on 2 major pillars: growth and innovation, as one pillar and regulation and representation as the other. The Foundation owns 1 guardian share of Dataswift and sits on Dataswift’s board, to ensure directors perform their fiduciary duty to uphold the purpose of the company. Growth and Innovation is driven by HATLAB, a consortium of universities, industry partners and other organisations, managed by the foundation. HATLAB is also the centre of research, education, and policy on the HAT. Research on data rights continue, with more than £10m grants coordinated by HATLAB and in collaboration with HATLAB Universities. Dataswift operates the development environment where partner projects and experiments come together.
Last updated: 2 months ago
The discover folder is where you can learn more about Personal Data and PDAs through articles, information sheets and podcasts. Some common questions are laid out below. ### What What is a Personal Data Account (PDA)? Find that out here at "Personal Data Accounts Explained" ### Why Why build on the PDA? See "Building Apps: Why they should be built on Personal Data Accounts" ### How Is building on PDAs architecturally different from conventional designs? Yes, read an article by Irene Ng on "Plutonium handling" here. More articles from our developer communtiy is on the way. Our contribute an article yourself! Does it cost more to develop and maintain a PDA platform? Not really. PDAs are issued free and you don't need to pay to build up the backend if you are doing a simple app. You just pay for API calls depending on the data you are reading. See the pricing here. Within the sandbox, you will get a bundle of free API calls to test out your application. ### What are your success stories? See some of our case studies here. There are many more applications in the sandbox. ### What are the other PDAs out there? PDAs are a very new technology that is just coming out of university research. The ability for individuals to own a personal data server with legally owned storage, computation and identity for real time and on demand sharing have not been possible till now. There are other technologies that give individuals control over data, but not a full server. In addition, there are legal, governance and economic implications when individuals own their servers, in terms of real time data sharing. This took the universities and the research domain some time to iron out. ### Is this a blockchain? No, the HAT Microserver is a personal data server - it has storage, computation and authentication capabilities legally owned by individuals themselves. It is more like PCs or Smartphones where there are applications integrated with it. See FAQ response here.
Last updated: a month ago
## What are Personal Data Accounts (PDAs)? Personal Data Accounts are a new (patent pending) cloud-based technology that enable individuals to collect, store, process and use their own personal data. Personal Data Accounts are powered by the "HAT Microserver" a personal data server. They provide full ownership and legal rights to its contents enabling individuals to contract and license their data in real time and on demand to websites and applications. Individuals can also give websites and applications permissions to read and write data into their own specific app folders in the PDA. Personal data accounts are usually issued to individuals within apps and websites when they register with the app/website, replacing the need for websites and apps to have centralised user accounts of their own. Personal Data Accounts are useful for organisations to store data that belong to their users, giving control back to their own customers while enabling their customers to reuse and reshare across other apps. It is scalable for the largest apps and contains built-in robust security. Personal Data Accounts also enable individuals to install pre-trained tools (supplied by organisations or data scientists) to generate “edge” analytics and private AI insights where the output data is returned back into the PDA and websites and apps can ask their users to share those insights with their websites and applications. Individuals can see the data in their PDA through their PDA dashboard called the HAT App. ### In Summary - Issued within an application, owned by the user - Ready-made HAT Microserver technology - Decentralised to the user, fully scalable - Secure and suitable for sensitive data - Developer-trusted, with robust security - Fully user-owned, fully-shareable, on-demand and in real time - Automatic scalability for even the largest apps - Edge analytics and private AI / machine learnin ## Types of PDAs ### Standard PDA For standard PDA functionalities ### Contracted PDA PDAs issued for Enterprise clients e.g. for students, employees, with joint rights and conditional access of a selected folder/namespace ### Regulated PDAs PDAs issued for regulated persons e.g. children, vulnerable people and deceased - data rights are subject to legal conditions ### Additional PDA Features - HIPAA de-scoped (applications using PDAs do not need HIPAA certification as individuals store their own data) - FCA Certified - ISO 27001 - 2FA - Multi region - Multi language - Web hooks - SHE functions for private Insight data
Last updated: 15 days ago