Sell your own digital footprint? One startup is adding transparency to the personal data industry

We live in the age of information, which means that in our lifetime we have witnessed the emergence of the personal data industry, with revenues of $156 billion USD annually. But until recently, the people generating this personal data and creating this emerging industry were not only entirely removed from the profits their personal information generated but were often largely unaware their data was being sold commercially.The recent increased awareness of the capture and sale of personal data has set in motion a revolution, one that startup Powr of You aims to capitalize on in order to put the power to control one’s own personal data back in the hands of the individual, not big corporations.

Powr Of You is a startup created in response, and total rejection of, the current personal data industry’s clandestine approach. Acting on the belief that consumers deserve to transparently view the data being collected on them, they created a way for consumers to be able to not only monitor, but additionally get financially rewarded with cash back for the personal data they contributed to data companies.

With the companies platform, users can view their digital footprint and see graphical analytics on their habits – as the same information companies are interested in is often intersting to the individual as well. Because Powr Of You is connecting fragmented cross-platform customer data (social, browsing, mobile, health, etc.) in one place users can see their ‘crumb trail’ and make decisions on how much and what kind of data to share in exchange for rewards or even alter their habits and productivity.

Because Co-Founder Shruti Malani Krishnan worked in healthcare, he was particularly preoccupied with personal privacy and created an extra feature to provide peace of mind to the platform’s users. The platform allows users to contribute their digital footprint data anonymously, only adding to the aggregate data of a company, but without that data linking to their profile.

Co-Founder, Keshav Malani has more than 6 years of experience in developing and creating insights from large datasets with varied tools. Together, they offer assurances of privacy and encrypted secure data. In all, Powr Of You shows that consumer data translates to time and money that deserves respect, appropriate usage, and rewards.