DECODE

With the generalization of Internet’s usage, thousands of data are created daily. The European project DECODE is a response to people’s concerns about a loss of control over their personal information on the internet and has the objective to develop a new model for the treatment of online data in which individuals are in control of what happens to their personal information and with who they share it.

DECODE’s tools allow the user to recover sovereignty on their data. These tools combine the blockchain technology with cryptography in order to help building a trusted digital society in which users feel their data safe.

In addition to empower citizens to recover control of their data, during the project DECODE’s partners have worked to create an alternative on how the big Internet companies manage user privacy and explore how to build a data-centric digital economy where data that are generated and gathered by citizens, the Internet of Things (IoT), and sensor networks are available for broader communal use, with appropriate privacy protections.

DECODE’s solution has been demonstrated through four pilots in Barcelona and Amsterdam between 2017 and 2019 with the active involvement of social entrepreneurs, hackers, and makers. The pilots focus on IoT and allow the citizens to manage and control their devices and the data they generate, as well as share resources away from centralized data platforms to move towards a socially oriented model to take advantage of the technologies for benefit of the community.