Insurance for building trust and enabling big data

Despite the knowledgeable efforts of data administrative agencies such as the CNIL in France and its regulatory governmental counterparts in other countries, and despite the development of data protection legislation, the huge extension of personal data circulation is not under control by any legal authority nor technical agency. The architecture is going astray and hacking incidents are increasing in both frequency and size, indicating that we are heading for a major crash/ hack in the next few years. The complexity of the connexions between databases, the search for a maximum fluidity in data circulation, and the rather weak concern for the protection of consumers from companies is leading to major flaws in architecture design while the expertise of hackers and their coordination (the black market of personal data) are increasing. At the same time, this concern is not shared by the public and every individual contributes to the flaws of the system through their own negligence, since no massive exit from platforms and services that use personal data extensively has been witnessed yet (although voices have been heard, mostly those of opinion leaders of various kinds and particularly cyberactivists). This project is preparing for the second stage of the “personal data ecosystem”, when confidence has been shaken and reliability and risks are anticipated, most likely after the occurrence of some kind of disaster equivalent to a “Fukushima of personal data”.