‘Why are they asking for my BVN?’

‘This privacy policy is such a long read, but it seems like I have to check this box to access their service.’

‘National ID number ! but that’s too much information right?’

Brows raising questions on web 2 data privacy concerns. Web 2 had a lot to give to internet users - user generated content was the new order that displaced web 1 but made more data demands from users than ever. However, the emergence of Web 3 and its share of data concerns have become very dicey conversation for big tech players, the cyber security guys and users alike. Should we have to bother about web3 data privacy and security?

At the core of web 3 is decentralization which claims to offer a conducive user experience by giving more control to users over their data in their interaction with the internet. What this means is that there is hardly a central location in web 3 where users' data are stored. Rather, there is now what seems like an ‘open register’ connecting a network of internet users who can access these registers.

Decentralization in respect to the blockchain as it where does not amount to privacy, it only ensures transparency. When your financial transactions have become public, privacy is not assured.

The last time I checked, privacy is about keeping information about oneself away from public attention right?

Let’s see some of the use cases or applications of web 3 and see if data privacy and security applies the same way

Content Recommendation

Content recommendation is a direct application of web 3 using machine learning and language process. This is such a great tool for businesses, advertisers and customer support services will continue to leverage in order to predict what users are interested in and place targeted ads to meet these needs.

However, content recommendation cannot happen for business and advertisers without user’s data. Although these data would be collected and analyzed by digital agents, these digital agents are still owned by big tech organizations. The idea of a semantic web comes with such a high cost that only big players can easily afford. The use of digital agents to read data and make targeted content recommendations for users is what the case would become.

Financial Services

The web 3 also brings humans to terms with peer-to-peer financial transactions which does not necessarily have to pass through a third party. The early days of bitcoin adoption saw many irrevocable losses due to the inability of users to keep their data private or keep it safe.

Users lost their wallet addresses, private keys to friends, some misplaced papers, some even lost their money during transactions ( cases where you send your money and never get the BTC equivalent you paid for, or you sent your BTC and never got value for it)

What does that tell you? It was not enough for users to keep their data private, it was also a bigger concern that the majority could not keep their data private and safe.

A few ways to save passwords would be saving it on google drive (which can also read your data), hard drives ( which could corrupt and lead to losses), save in an encrypted file in your computer and mobile devices, what if it gets lost?

Now all these concerns are major reasons why centralized blockchain exchanges that offer financial services may never go away so easily because they have successfully bridged the trust gap and identity management issues that decentralization created.

However, this bridge of gap came with some data requirements to meet organizations KYC and compliance requirements. So where is the privacy in web 3 use cases?

Image processing and connectivity

The internet had lots of information about you already. It knows your true age in most cases, your true names, your family and friends, through social apps, your profession, has photos of you which you willingly shared, your identification numbers, nationality, state of origin, you can name them. The more information about you the internet has, the better it can serve you and the better user experience you have.

Image processing is an AI and machine learning function that can match patterns and images. Self driving cars are applicable but in terms of user privacy, face recognition, voice recognition, fingerprints and other authentication factors that apply, claims to keep you safe while using the internet. But believe it or not, users' data are going into it to ensure this.

The advent of smart houses confirms that the old saying about ‘garbage in, garbage out’ is still true about the internet.

Identity management

As a matter of fact, identity management is that big responsibility that web 3 based centralized platforms are offering to help users safeguard their data in order to access their platforms for web 3 services from time to time.

Email verifications, phone number verification, two factor authentication and the likes are all part of the deal. But at the same time, this was supposed to be decentralized after all?

Should we have to bother about data privacy and security with web 3?

For emphasis, the core of web 3 is decentralization. However, decentralization does not guarantee automatic data privacy.

The web 3 features tokenization, 3D graphics, Artificial intelligence, blockchain, semantic web, Internet of Things and even more.

Most of these technologies are able to read data from the internet to make smart decisions, they are able to recognize patterns even faster than humans. On Top of that, they are all programmed to function by human organizations. The only difference is that humans do not have to do a lot of the tasks because these technologies can perform them faster and seamlessly.

As for the blockchain and decentralization, bridging the trust gap and the need for data security and management will necessitate building centralized platforms that would function on the decentralized apps just like we have today.

Moreso, the clamor for government regulation of the blockchain technology shares conflicting interests that would be a great concern to the web 3 privacy policy and user experience generally.

Should you have a contrary opinion, please share your thoughts.