SmartData: Make the data “think” for itself
George J. Tomko, Donald S. Borrett, Hon C. Kwan, Greg Steffan · Identity in the Information Society · 2010
SmartData is a research program to develop web-based intelligent agents that will perform two tasks: securely store an individual’s personal and/or proprietary data, and protect the privacy and security of the data by only disclosing it in accordance with instructions authorized by the data subject. The vision consists of a web-based SmartData agent that would serve as an individual’s proxy in cyberspace to protect their personal or proprietary data. The SmartData agent (which ‘houses’ the data and its permitted uses) would be transmitted to, or stored in a database, not the personal data itself. In effect, there would be no personal or proprietary “raw” data out in the open—it would instead be housed within a SmartData agent, much like we humans carry information in our “heads;” extending the analogy, it would be the “human-like clone” that would be transmitted or stored, not the raw data. The binary string representative of a SmartData agent would be located in local or central databases. Organizations requiring access to any of the data resident within the agent would query it once it had been “activated.” In this paper, we provide a preliminary overview of the SmartData concept, and describe the associated research and development that must be conducted in order to actualize this vision.