Reclaiming Individual Sovereignty: Empowering Users in the Web3 Era

2023-07-30 03:04:19
During the mobile revolution, we traded our autonomy for convenience. However, in retrospect, it seems that we should have looked more closely at those particular Terms and Conditions before agreeing. The New York Times revealed the unpleasant truth that millions of people share their data all the time, without their express consent. Countless websites and social platforms have already been fined for collecting and selling personal data to third parties, and more and more lawsuits are being filed with the threat of large fines — Meta, for example, was sued for $3.1 billion. In the world of Web2, users have limited control over what happens to their data, but thanks to decentralization, it seems we have the tools to reclaim our sovereignty. What is individual sovereignty? The so-called “self-sovereign identity” (SSI) term emerged in 2005, when Microsoft system designer Kim Cameron described what a secure data model should look like. Simply put, individual sovereignty means owning and controlling your own online identity and deciding who has access to that personal information. This also means that there is no need for a higher level of authority to validate or authenticate the data. An Ethereum address, for example, can be self-sovereign because it can be created without a higher level of authority, and signatures can be validated without a higher level of approval. Moving from Web2 infrastructures to individual sovereignty requires blockchain and cryptographic technologies. Unlike centralized systems, decentralization enhances the value of emerging Web3 applications by providing individual control over data, identities, and credentials. There are many reasons why companies should take responsibility and provide individual sovereignty to their users, but the likelihood of this happening without legal intervention is low. A multitude of companies, and indeed entire industries, benefit from our data, and despite the high risk and frequent breaches, without government support and wider adoption of Web3, not much is expected to change. Reclaiming individual sovereignty Centralized solutions such as Web2 are fundamentally defined by control over authentication. The system that stores and accesses the data is usually owned by a single organization (or person), which gives it full control over the data, regardless of what promises it makes about its use. However, from educating users to perfecting intelligent UX design, there are many hurdles to overcome before Web3 becomes mainstream. The technology is still in its infancy and requires building real infrastructure along with the adoption of new coding paradigms. In addition to making the technology work, it is important to streamline the user experience, which makes decentralized networks more attractive and promotes the spread of the technology. Even though the focus is most often on the relationship of Web3 to blockchain or cryptocurrency, in fact, individual sovereignty is much more important; and just as with our freedom, we must constantly strive not to lose it. Published on the BitcoinBázis page.
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