Microsoft is reportedly working on a new project codenamed “Bali.” The new project, according to Mary Jo Foley who discovered it, is designed to give users control over the data collected from them.
The project is a Microsoft Research effort and it appears that access is currently very limited.
The URL for the Bali project page allows those with a password to log in to the site and states that those without a password can request one.
Bali’s “About” page describes the project as a “new personal data bank that gives users control over all data collected about them… The bank will allow users to store all of their data (raw and processed) and will allow the user to visualize, manage, control, share, and monetize that data.”
According to the “About” page, Bali is based on the concept of “Inverse Privacy” (PDF), a study written in 2014 by Yuri Gurevich, Efim Hudis, and Jeannette Wing, who were working for Microsoft Research at the time.
According to the principle of “Inverse Privacy”, an item of personal information is inversely private (or not private) if a third party has access to it while its creator does not. Healthcare providers, police, toll operators, supermarket chains and employers create inversely private data, which, in many cases, could also benefit the users themselves.
Bali's page states that the project is still in its "early stages," meaning that the developers are focused on helping users aggregate their personal data from various websites.
Although not every Microsoft Research project turns into a commercial product or service, I would like to think that Bali has a good chance of becoming a commercially available service at some point.
With big tech companies like Facebook and Google collecting vast amounts of personal data, Microsoft could benefit from giving users control over their own data, but also benefit from the users themselves wanting to market it.
_______________
- Windows 10: faster systems with an asterisk
- Google+ service shutdown and data leaks
- FairBnB launches in 2019 as an alternative to Airbnb
- Windows 10: Microsoft vs ransomware
