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Where sharing personal data is concerned people get very emotional about it, fast. Yet would we share our data anonymously if this led to Data Scientists being able to eradicate the cause of a disease? Many would agree with this.

Yet, people post their intimate and office lives on Facebook, tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn etc., so we truly are “fishbowlers” – people that live in a goldfish bowl that all around can see (if anyone is actually at all interested.)

So coming to the conclusion that people don’t want faceless corporations or governments to have access to our personal data but are happy to share details at different levels of privacy or permission could lead to a world where we each have our own “Datavatar” – a 3D construct that allows you to edit and record your permissions, centrally held in a DMZ of its own.

So levels of anonymity could be seen as layers of permission – i.e. I am willing for my data to be used for medical purposes, I’m willing for my data to be used in aggregate, or for general market research. I don’t want it to be back-traceable to my address etc, my family, my personal health or my political beliefs.

I don’t want to be sold at or feel like I’m being marketed to, but at the same time I’m happy to receive serendipity in the form of the right communication at the right time, if it helps increase my utility, happiness or ability to achieve a task.

Consider for a minute where mobile, location based and crowd-sourcing is heading. If I have a dialogue with my smart device, it could remind me of a birthday present I should buy before I miss the moment. Perhaps it could suggest a nearby store (or offer to ‘zon it in gift wrap). If I want to see the product myself before I choose then my device could make suggestions based on my preferences by consulting my Datavatar and then show me the route to the store. With optimisation algorithms as standard my time won’t be wasted and the recommender system will ensure that I’m only shown stuff that’s in-stock.

Indeed, my Datavatar, as a web-based intelligent agent could also monitor and interact with what my friends are buying and also with retailer brands I trust and like. I may be happy for my data to be shared according to these permissions for the common good or traded in certain circumstances on Trading Platforms for data. If our data can be shared (then we are the product, or at least our eyeballs are as with Facebook, Twitter etc business models) and we are comfortable for this to happen, then the real provision of services and “what I want” can only come alive if data can be shared between providers.

When is me, me?

The value of partial data is just that. My bank knows what I spend on my credit card but not with cash. My mobile phone knows that I call certain numbers but not who I call from my landline. My local supermarket knows what I top up with but not what my main weekly shop is etc.

And if part of the value is in linked datasets i.e. if my cardio-vascular disease risk level is high because I have a cheeseburger for breakfast every day, and being able to make the correlation and then understand the causation, it is the richness of these datasets being overlaid that generates the true value. So the presence of an anonymised Datavatar becomes hugely valuable, just as long as no-one knows it’s me except for when I’m content to let them know it’s me.

So what if businesses pooled their data, even their client data with some caveats. Maybe supermarkets could share data with mobile telcos who could share location data with beer companies or taxi companies to find hotspots of consumption.Like fitting pieces together in a jigsaw.

Maybe when I get off a plane my bank or rental car company will know that I’m there and don’t want to waste time filling in forms or explaining that I’m on a trip. After all, if a merchanting system knows I’ve bought a plane flight to San Francisco, why would an algorithm be surprised if I want to buy something in California.

Maybe my Datavatar should be talking with them first …