[MyData's Long Road Ahead] Digi.Me Chairman: "Connecting Companies with Information Actively Shared by Individuals"

"People Want Ultra-Personalized Health Services"
"Medical Staff Should Have Access to Personal Body Information and Wearable Data"

▲Digi.Me Founder Chairman Julian Ranger

[Asia Economy Reporter Sim Nayoung] "Data is not collected by Digi.mi. Our role is to help people collect it themselves to improve their health and make personalized consumption choices."

Julian Ranger, founder of Digi.mi in the UK, who delivered the keynote speech at the Seoul Asia Financial Forum on the 26th titled 'My Data for All - Focusing on Overseas Success Cases,' emphasized in an interview with Asia Economy Newspaper that the My Data business should be viewed strictly from the perspective of enhancing consumer benefits.

Digi.mi is regarded as the leading My Data business in the UK. Established in 2009, it operates a personal data repository. Its asset size grew from 1 million pounds (approximately 150 million KRW) in 2015 to 7.4 million pounds (approximately 1.17 billion KRW) in 2018. Digi.mi acts as a 'platform' that provides companies requiring personal data with information that individuals have pre-consented to store.

Ranger stated, "Our mission is to connect 'Zero-Party Data'?information such as health data, wearable device data, financial data, social data, and media consumption data that people intentionally and actively share with brands?between individuals and companies," adding, "In the future, we plan to enable people to use verified certification information usefully as well."

Ranger explained that My Data services will be very valuable propositions for people. He cited the health sector as an example. "People increasingly want hyper-personalized health services, and healthcare professionals and web developers who provide these services need access to detailed personal physical information and wearable data," he said. "Through Digi.mi, people must have this data themselves to receive the desired services promptly." He continued, "For example, if a diabetes-related application wants prescription records and smartwatch data, diabetic patients will willingly provide that data," adding, "Health-related applications help people improve their physical condition and save lives."

Regarding the security of personal data stored by Digi.mi, Ranger said, "Personal data stored in Digi.mi's repository is safer than anywhere else." Information collected through the Digi.mi app is encrypted and stored and transmitted in each user's cloud storage via Digi.mi processing. The encrypted data can only be decrypted using the key stored on the smartphone and the password designated by the user. By not storing personal information on Digi.mi's servers but in the user's personal cloud storage, the risk of hacking is reduced.

Ranger explained, "The biggest feature of Digi.mi's IT system is that it is decentralized," adding, "Decentralization greatly increases the difficulty of data attacks, and even if an attack succeeds, the leaked data belongs to one person, not millions, so hackers have no incentive to hack."