UK startup Mine, the first company to ever give people back ownership of their personal data online, has launched in the UK after raising a €2.7 million seed round backed by Battery Ventures and Saban Ventures. The tech startup empowers users to discover what the internet knows about them, as well as giving users a choice where their data should or shouldn’t be.
Founded in 2019, Mine’s mission is to build a new global privacy standard by helping people worldwide to make more informed choices about their personal data while enjoying the wonderful internet. The AI-based platform enables every digital user to discover, understand and effectively manage what the internet knows about them: their digital footprint, which has been left from signing up to online services and downloading apps, to making online purchases.
Mine has already analysed four million digital services in order to relay to users precisely which parts of their data are being stored. Moreover, Mine discovered that the average users have 400 companies in their footprint, out of which, more than 80% of the services are unused and can be deleted; a strong indication as to the extent of how little we are in control of our personal data.
Mine works by using non-intrusive machine learning algorithms that unlock the power in users’ email inboxes, looking for digital traces that companies have left through previous or on-going relationships with them. Mine does this without processing or collecting any personal data related to the user. In fact, Mine never reads, collects or stores any email content (or holds any individuals’ data) and is committed to using the absolute minimum information in order to provide its service.
Mine then gives users ownership over their data by leveraging global privacy regulations, specifically the GDPR “right to be forgotten” clause, which allows users to request that online services delete their data. For an everyday person, there is no simple way to enforce the “right to be forgotten” which is one of the key reasons why Mine was built. If a user wants a digital service to forget them, Mine sends a reclaim request to each company on the users’ behalf, asking them to delete all records of the person’s data from their systems.
Gal Ringel, co-founder and CEO of Mine, said: “We are entering a decade where people are increasingly concerned with how intrusive everyday apps and platforms have become. Therefore, we decided to invest our efforts into building a solution that will provide consumers with a real choice about who gets to keep their data and how it’s used. We are kick-starting the future of data ownership.”
David Hoffman, Global Privacy Officer at Intel Corporation, said: “Mine is solving one of the most urgent issues in privacy: allowing individuals to exercise more control over their data. Mine’s role will have an impact on the wider digital economy, where increasingly, trust and transparency can be established between individuals and companies. Intel believes privacy is a fundamental human right and technologies like Mine play a critical role along with legislation in realizing the promise of optimizing for the ethical and innovative use of data.”
Barak Pridor, Managing Director at Saban Ventures said: “We all deserve the right to determine the extent of our digital exposure. Mine is a revolutionary product that empowers the consumer to do just that. We are very proud to join this exciting journey.”
via https://www.AiUpNow.com/ by contact@bcurdy.com, Khareem Sudlow
