"From data abuse to personal data control and direct compensation" – implementing and developing on top of the Cardano blockchain a (personal) data management and data sharing platform with integrated DID (ATALA PRISM) that (i) gives people back control over their personal information by choosing who has access to the data and (2) compensates them for the use of their data and for their attention.

Before going into our detailed proposal, we included a short summary on the (i) team, (ii) the cardano adoption in the next 3/6 months; (iii) a summary of our existing product in which we will insert the POC under this fund, and (iv) what 3-6-12 months success looks like.

Team – We have a versatile team with experience in blockchain projects that is able and committed to tackle this challenge within the budget proposed.

     Michiel Van Roey – tech and privacy lawyer https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvanroey/

     Rajasekaran Yogarajah – senior developer (in plutus pioneer program) https://www.linkedin.com/in/life-artist/

     Luke Bragg – product architect - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasbragg/

     Ipek Sahiner – senior engineer in tech industry https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipeksahinerschlecht/

     Shawn Jensen https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnj/ 

Cardano adoption in the next 3 - 6 months - We are currently launching the existing Profila mobile application (iOS/Android) with 5 SME consumer brands in 3 regions (Benelux - Switzerland - Orlando/California), and are expecting +/- 1000-2000 users per month to join (via B2B2C model, as invited by brands). 20.000 expected by Q2 2022 (approx.. 6 months after the voting ends for this fund 6

Introduction to Profila and the Profila App

Profila GmbH is a Swiss company founded in 2018 with the main focus to give people control over their personal data and (re)connect brands with individuals in a privacy preserving manner, one-to-one and at scale. Profila has a vision of giving people agency over their online lives, and giving brands a better way to build meaningful customer relationships.

The major functionalities available in the Profila platform (mobile app for consumers and web portal for brands): 

1. Privacy education and privacy rights management – people can learn about privacy and their legal rights, and exercise them towards brands via an easy 3-click process (see our funded proposal in fund 5 – "control your data; privacy ledger", https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Control-your-data-%E2%80%93-privacy-ledger/350680-48088))

2. Ethical and consented data sharing - Individuals can select to share certain information to with a brand of their choosing and get compensated for it. (see our proposal in fund 6 – "dapp to control/monetize your data" - https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Dapp-to-control-monetize-your-data/366908-48088))

We already have a finished mobile application (2 years in development) to integrate this Fund 6 proof of concept in and are currently launching the existing Profila mobile application (iOS/Android) with 5 SME consumer brands in 3 regions (Benelux - Switzerland - Orlando/California), and are expecting +/- 1000-2000 users per month to join (via B2B2C model, as invited by brands). 25.000 expected by end 2021; 78.200 expected by end Q2 2022 (approx.. 6 months after the voting ends for this fund 6).

Success after 3 – 6 – 12 months. Counting from the end of the voting results (October/November 2021), success after 3 months would be to have a succesful integration of PRISM DID into the Profila app as our identity management system component. Success after 6 months would be to test with new customers that join Profila. Success after 12 months would be a full fledged deployment of ATALA PRISM, used by each profila user.

 

Now let's move on to our actual detailed proposal (!):

 

1. The Profila Platform today

With Profila, People can manage their digital life in one location via an app that shows which organisations have access to (certain parts of) their personal data. People can sort all their personal information, product preferences and communication preferences and communicate with all the organizations they want to interact with in the same easy way (instead of on each individual organization's platform each time). The entire tool is design for people to (1) gain control over their personal data; (2) choose to ethically share (or not) they personal data with organisations, and (3) get compensated if they do. (see "Illustration 1).

The Profila platform encompasses two major parts, a mobile app and a web app.

The mobile app allows the user to interact with remaining parts of the Profila platform. It will be used to set up user preferences, consent configuration, subscriptions to brands, etc. In addition, it will provide to the user access to all the information about all activities associated with Profila platform including which ads they have received, which ads they have interacted with, and videos or photos sent to subscribed brands.

The Mobile App: A person centric, multi brand experience mobile application that will enabling an individual to:

• Engage with brands and manage own privacy

• Create and selectively share own digital profile

• Get rewarded in cash and brand value

The Web App: A permission-based relationship for brands with individual customer that will enable to:

• Access evergreen, accurate zero-party data and insights

• Communicate and advertise on a private channel

• Earn attention and deliver true personalization

3. Profila tomorrow – the Catalyst project - integrating with IOG through ATALA PRISM for our identity management system component

Because of all these interactions in Profila between people and brands have legal consequences (including the payout to consumers for granting access to their data), we need certainty that the transactions happened between the 2 parties, and that the individual is who he/she says he/she is. We therefore need proof of identity.

Towards the further realization of the Profila platform, Profila is therefore looking to integrate with IOG through ATALA PRISM for the identity management system component. If you want to control your data online and receive (financial) compensation for your data, it is important you can provide proof of your identity. ATALA PRISM is the perfect solution. By integrating ATALA PRISM, we can better guarantee that the correct person is sharing information and is receiving payments.

Profila would integrate its platform with IOG identity management system to enable customers owning DID based digital ID and various credentials which will be the base for their communication with brands. The identity management part is needed to incorporate zero knowledge proof, the aspect of enabling an individual to share her/his own data (psychographic, preference, etc.) and contents to brands with the fact that the brand does not know any more details about the individual except that information is of a living person who is uniquely identified by the Profila platform and is used for targeting and advertising purposes.

We believe that we can use ATALA PRISM for the following capabilities:

Digital ID – one click registration; login; confirmation

        2. Credential management – user owning and sharing credentials

        3. Data privacy management – user exercising legal data subject rights

        4. Document certification (ID documents, legal documents, certifications, KYC, etc)

        5. Data Sharing – user selectively sharing information

        6. Personal Data Vault – user controlling third party access

 

The following use cases are foreseen:

User registration - As Profila, we need to register any Profila user with digital ID or Physical ID to ensure that he/she is a living person.

2. User identification - As Profila, we need to ensure that all users are cryptographically identified as a unique person so  that no two users with the same identity can register in Profila Platform.

3. User's data sharing (anonymously – OPTION 1) – as a user, I need to be able to choose to disclose only some parts of my profile anonymously to a brand of my choice, and securely share information.

4. User's data sharing (consented, via data subscription – OPTION 2) – as a user, I need to have an option to take my consent for sharing the whole of my profile non-anonymously to a specific brand.

5. Brand advertising - As a brand admin, I need to create a private and secured connection with individual for advertising

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What other challenges are ahead in our "Zero-knowledge advertising & insights" development roadmap?

This ATALA PRISM DID project is only one of the steps into our broader Cardano technology adoption and integration around zero-knowledge advertising and insights, which all relate to the control of your personal data and your attention by you as an individual. 

Under the other funds and challenges, we already have submitted additional project proposals for important other features we want to develop as part of this effort:

• step 1 - personal data license smart contract – under this step, individuals can select to share certain information to with a brand of their choosing and get compensated for it. (see our proposal in fund 6 – "dapp to control/monetize your data" - https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Dapp-to-control-monetize-your-data/366908-48088))

• step 2 - privacy ledger – This will include a ledger for all privacy interactions via the privacy rights management platform, which allows users to control their data via legal privacy rights (e.g. right to be forgotten or the right to rectify incorrect data). UPDATE - We have submitted this proposal under the "metadata challenge" of FUND 5 and received the first place! #thankyouADAcommunity. See here for our proposal: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Control-your-data-%E2%80%93-privacy-ledger/350680-48088. We will keep you posted on our progress.

• Step 3 - digital ID (for FUND 6) - Atala PRISM implementation – this is the present submission

• step 4 (for FUND 7 or later) - zero-knowledge proofs* - personalized ads with respect of privacy - using zero-knowledge proofs* in order to allow a brand to advertise to the "perfect" consumer (meaning to the exact target audience consumer, which exactly matches the specific offering/message a brand wants to share), without sharing ANY personal data with the brand. Stay tuned for more information!   (*Zero knowledge proof is a sort of an approach securing private data, which is through a cryptographic technique that has been used to provide privacy by design in the context of DLT and blockchain. Shortly, zero knowledge proof allows an entity called a prover to argue to another party, called verifier, that a determined statement is true without revealing more information than strictly necessary to convince the truth.)

4. Practical aspects – "show us the money" – costs

Via this submission, we are requesting funding to develop our ATALA PRISM DID proof of concept integration. We assess that the creation of such a POC will require at least a budget of 39.650 USD for a 3-month development project, to be allocated as follows:

• 20 days of senior developer (Raja, our CTO) @ 900 USD per day – totaling 18.000 USD

• 25 days of web/backend developer @ 300 USD per day – totaling +/- 7.500 USD

• 25 days of app developer @ 300 USD per day – totaling +/- 7.500 USD

• 7 days of legal and project management work, including progress reporting (Michiel, general counsel) @ 950 USD per day – totaling +/- 6.650 USD

5. Practical aspects – "getting on the road" – GTM; geographical focus; target customer

At the time of the submission of our application to Catalyst Fund 6, the development of our Profila App is finalized and we are onboarding/setting up 5 small and medium enterprises (SME) to trial with their existing consumers. This section explains more about our GTM, ideal location, target customers etc.

(1) Go-to-Market – our Go-to-Market is B2B2C, namely working with brands to invite their existing consumers onto the Profila App, as a new communication channel that is privacy compliant and consumer centric. As part of the onboarding process of these brands, we work together with them to design a promotional campaign via email/social media, via which they invite their best customers to engage with them via Profila.

We have signed up 5x SMEs in 3 regions (see below), who in total have around 500.000 existing customers all combined. Considering that we expect 5% of this customer base to accept the invitation and join Profila, we foresee 25.000 active Profila users in 2021 (Q1 2022). According to our active brand onboarding efforts, this should grow to 78.000 by the end of 2022 (by adding more brands).

(2) Geographical focus market? We are launching the Profila App with 5 SME Brands in 3 regions in Q3 2021 (Benelux - Switzerland - Orlando/California).

(3) Ideal consumer segment? – privacy-aware and digitally savvy "Millennials" (adults between the ages of 22 and 39 years old) that are ware that they have rights to their personal data, but do not yet have an easy tool to control it; and "brand-loyalists" (consumers that have an affinity with the brand and would like to have a closer 1-1 relationship).

(4) Ideal SME segment? – SME companies in these 3 regions that respect consumer privacy and want a better relationship with their consumers, with a prime focus on SMEs in the following industries: (1) fashion, (2) travel, (3) leisure/recreation.

(5) Marketing, Website & social media presence – We have focused our 3-year research and development phase (as well as our funding) on the development and testing of our consumer app and brand dashboard and have – on purpose – not made much noise about our project until now. Now that the first product is ready and being tested, we are starting a first marketing campaign on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/profilaprivacy (B2B, attracting new companies that want to have a different relationship as described above), we are rebuilding our Website www.profila.com (new version expected end of 2021), and will start a consumer campaign on social media focusing on our ideal customer target (see above).

6. Intellectual Property information (freedom to operate; IP registrations; contracts)

As an intellectual property lawyer, I made sure that all Profila's intellectual property (IP)-assets are documented/protected:

First, we have conducted a thorough freedom to operate study and patent landscape analysis with the Swiss Innovation Agency, to make sure we are free to develop and commercialize our current technology without infringing on third-party rights.

Second, we have filed for the necessary trademarks that protect our logos and trade names in commerce.

In addition, we have a solid contractual framework in place with all of our suppliers, employees, contractors and customers. All parties involved in our day-to-day activities are doing so under a contract, which include the necessary IP transfer-, confidentiality- and non-compete obligations that protect (and collect) our company's intellectual assets. As part of that, every contracted developer has assigned all IP rights to the Profila App to us, which we will also require from developers working on this project.

Finally, we are looking into open sourcing the majority of the technology (code) developed under this project and will assess (and take feedback) on an ongoing basis which components would be of interest to the community.

7. Defining success

The POC we will develop under this Catalyst fund 6 submission will add important functionalities to our consumer App – which is being tested on the market during the next 6 months. The POC will also advance our mission and vision to provide people with control of their data and compensation for their attention. Success of the POC would be that we can integrate it into our existing App with one of the 5 SME brands that are testing, and make sure it works with their consumers. .