As the value of personal data becomes more clear to outside of the technology industry, individuals may turn to mutual funds for an idea of how to regain control over the value of their data, according to VentureBeat. Just as mutual funds allowed small individual investors to gain access to securities, a “digital property fund” could allow individuals to manage their digital property, capitalizing on their own data.
“We could soon see a market-driven fix for many of the data breach issues we’re seeing today,” the report observed. “The thing to remember about this fund contribution is that you are free to move the management of your digital property to another fund at any time. Specifically, you’re hiring the mutual fund to act as your agent.” Just as asset managers are responsible for managing a fund’s capital in the mutual fund industry, digital asset managers would do something similar with digital information.
The mutual fund industry might even have a head start over others. “This vast new opportunity is just too big for the financial services industry to pass up,” the article noted. “Our data is too valuable to continue to manage it by simply clicking on unread terms of service agreements.”