PDATA TOKEN - The New Age of Personal Data Trading

The Issue with Personal Data Today

Personal data - an emerging problem nowadays that doesn`t seem to have an end. People seek for ways to keep their personal information safe and far from the hands of people that wish to get it for free and without the consent of the data owners. The GDPR was formed exactly because of people that make a fortune out of selling personal data, and even though it has been active for a while now, there isn`t really a big difference and people still don`t trust social medias with their personal information. Nobody really blames them. After all, social medias like Facebook and YouTube have profited a lot using the data without giving anything to the consumers in return.

People have begun to give false information about themselves which gives them the advantage of still using the platform and feel safe knowing that nobody is able to get to their real information. Another solution that is gaining popularity fast is as simple and easy for the consumer as it is devastating for the companies: the user just doesn`t use the platform, thus not sharing any information whatsoever.

However, while both solutions somewhat help users feel better about themselves, they are devastating for the companies that need this kind of information for their products and services. For example if a person gives false information about their preferences, companies are going to start producing content that is suitable for a person with the written preferences, but when the content reaches the actual person he dislikes them and refuses to buy them, this way the company is facing possible bankruptcy because their content doesn`t match the needs of the people and it isn`t bought. On the other hand, in the long run, people don`t actually benefit from giving false information because the quality of content they are going to get wouldn`t be up to their expectations thus making things a lot harder for them than it should be. And that is just from giving false information, imagine how much worse things can get if companies don`t have anything to base their content on and are forced to create random content! We`ll be getting things that we will most likely dislike and companies are going to go bankrupt.

Since these solutions end up to be bad for everyone in the end, is there a way for both parties to profit from the whole situation? Teams like the ones that are behind AMLT are creating solutions for different problems but they haven`t tackled the personal data problem. Civic on the other hand does have something in mind with their project but they still focus mainly on different ways of protecting the users data, in their case the companies don’t really have a big benefit from all this because they still need the data. If only there was a way for users to choose who can view their information and actually benefit from it.

The Opiria Solution

There has actually been a project at work this whole time that can be the solution to our “personal data stealing” problem: Opiria or more commonly known as PDATA Token!

Okay, many of you are thinking “What is Opiria?” Opiria alongside the PDATA token is the first ever blockchain based marketplace for people to sell and buy personal data. Okay, there are some other similar projects but this one eliminates the need for a third party to control the transactions thanks to the smart contracts that are in use. The value of the token on the platform is actually determined in a similar way as any other market- it is determined by the forces of supply and demand of personal information. Sure, this kind of deals with the problem of wondering how to deal with the problem but what can we do to stop people from continuing to steal the information? The PDATA token ecosystem has that covered as it is based on a blockchain where a person is just a set of numbers that form an address somewhere on the web.

On the Opiria platform, people will be able to choose which companies can view their personal data as well as earn tokens by sharing said data. These tokens can be traded between users and eventually for fiat money as well as for other tokens. Speaking of tokens, why should people care to hold them? Aside from the obvious reasons there are some privileges the platform offers to its users if they share enough: these are different leveled ranks- gold, silver and bronze. All the competitive gamers out there are probably giggling a bit after reading that because that is the same tactic many competitive games use to keep the players interested and motivated to play more and more.

Opiria as of today is actually a platform for web-based market research that allows its users to participate in surveys that can benefit them in the long run because they are essentially helping companies design better services and products.

For ease of use, the Opiria`s web application and its user database can be accessed by companies by logging in. It can be seen as a central platform for analyzing and creating surveys but I see it more like an open market for companies to display their products and ask people if they like it. As of today there are two types of surveys that can be made on the application: mobile diaries that can be answered multiple times and it has the ability to track the experience of the user, the other type of survey is the mobile survey which can be answered only once and usually disappears after you answer it.

By the way, Opiria is actually a working app that can be downloaded from the IOS Store and Google play, links to those apps sit proudly on the PDATA website that we`ll be talking about in a minute.

The Business Side of the Project

According to the roadmap the project was founded way back in July of 2015 and for the next 3 years the project had passed only a handful of milestones which are, in no particular order: the launch of the platform, the localization of Opiria in China and expanding sales in 4 markets and having 50 customers that are using the Opiria platform. You are right, that isn`t very impressive although I am sure that the next milestone and the plans for the future can change your mind. In April of 2018 the PDATA Token Generation Event started and with it- “all hell broke loose”. Two more milestones are scheduled to occur during 2018 and they are pretty bold: in September they are to launch Opiria 2.0 which is going to include eye tracking and emotion sensing technology as well as web-surveys, and in December they are going to extent the consumer profile module. If 2018 seemed like a big year wait till you see what they have planned for 2019. Overall the year has four milestones and each of them has to do with major upgrades and module add-ons like the web-browsing behavior module, social media module, mobile module and the one that sounds most exciting: the wearables and smart devices module. The final year of the project is not as extravagant as 2019 as it hold only one module upgrade and with it the project should be complete but who knows, maybe they will think of more features that can be added, after all they do have a platform for completing surveys.

Obviously all of these upgrades and the platform itself was not a “gift from the Gods” and it has real people behind it. To be exact there are two people that are behind the project. Marlene Gagesch is a Co-founder and the CTO of Opiria and PDATA Token, she has a Master`s of Science in Computer Science from Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. She has a lot of experience with these kinds of projects and is obviously very enthusiastic about the whole project as it can be seen on her YouTube channel where she has posted several videos about PDATA Token.

I did say that Marlene is a co-founder, well the other co-founder is Dr.-Ing. Christian Lange who also happens to be the CEO as well. Just like Marlene he is well educated and he has a Master' in Science (Mechanical Engineering) and a Ph.D. in Human Factors and Ergonomics but unlike her his education came from the University of Munich which by the way is one of the top 100 universities in the world. It is worth mentioning that he has a Stroebl prize for his work in the autonomous driving and traffic safety spheres. All these facts are strong indicators that Christian is more than capable of leading the company.

Behind them is a large team of capable and motivated developers and just like any other good project there are a handful of advisors to help the team reach their goal.

The PDATA website contains all the necessary links and short descriptions that a site should have. Aside from the formalities the site itself has a responsive design that is executed very well, if I can be the judge of that. The text is easy to understand and the visuals are enticing. On the site there are links to how to contact each member of the team as well as a list of all the advisors.

The whitepaper consists of 78 pages, clean, well-written and easily understandable text that is written to serve as a guide to the project`s idea, goals and pretty much everything else that a customer would want to know.

According to icodrops.com the tokensale for the PDATA token is going to start on the 16th of June and is going to end on the 14th of July. That is almost a month which is a reasonable timespan for a token sale. Obviously they have chosen the name PDATA for a name and they have chosen ERC20 for the type. The total number of tokens is 750,000,000 from which only 60% will be available during the token sale, the rest are going to be used throughout the lifespan of the project. A weird thing about all this is that they still haven`t set (or maybe they won`t set) neither a hard cap nor a soft cap. Which I think is interesting and I`d like to see how this will turn out.

A quick comparison with CIVIC

There aren`t many other projects out there that are even close to what PDATA is doing. The closest example that I can find is Civic.

Civic`s main goal is to lower the costs of security and protection of valuable data and limiting access to it which means it can be applied to personal data and would definitely be a viable option but as I mentioned earlier, Civic doesn`t really offer a decent solution to the personal data problem as a whole. Sure it prevents the theft of personal data but what happens with the false data and the lost trust between people and companies. That is why for this exact problem that we are facing, PDATA is most suitable because it is made to be a solution to the problem. Although Civic is going to come out sooner and might offer us some fresh air, we will still need to wait a couple years longer till we finally get the solution that would benefit all of us.

My Thoughts

As an average consumer my concern for my personal data is rather high. I do not wish to have my information sold to companies without my consent even if it is for a generally good idea. I do not like the fact that it happens and that I do not have a say in the matter and that is frustrating for me like it is for thousands if not millions of people out there. For all of us, Opiria and PDATA are a way to finally stop worrying and being able to relax, knowing that we finally have control over the information that we provide.

Something that needs to be talked about is the team`s idea to add wearables and mobile device modules that are going to be able to read how we react to certain advertisements and other stimuli. As much as it is a good idea it might be a little difficult to convince people to give up that much information considering that these devices are also going to record where we are going and what we are doing.

Otherwise I think that the project as a whole has a bright future as long as it proves itself early on so that people are going to trust it. I for one, after researching it for quite some time now can say for sure that I do trust them and I am hoping that they succeed.

More Information:

Website: https://opiria.io/

Telegram Group: https://t.me/PDATAtoken

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