We consider a world, which abides by the following principle: All personal data is considered private. Every individual has absolute ownership of her personal data, which reside only at the owner’s side. Beyond the apparent advantages of such an environment for users’ privacy, the question arises of how functional such an environment would be for all kinds of online transactions. We propose and develop a personal data management framework called Polis, which implements the aforementioned principle. Preliminary results indicate that, using Polis, everyday transactions are both feasible and straightforward.

 

   As the use of computers and the internet becomes more popular by the minute, the issue of protecting one’s personal data is more essential than ever. The way electronic transactions are conducted nowadays, makes it necessary for the customer to give away her personal data to the service provider and hope that the latter will not use them in a malicious way. We assert that using an appropriate personal data management ramework, like Polis, the customer’s personal data never needs to be stored by the service provider in any kind of transaction. Each time the customer’s personal data is needed, it has to be retrieved from the customer’s Polis agent. This way, users acquire ultimate control over the use of their personal data. We agree with the belief that the individual has the right to know about and to decide upon the information about her, which is being processed. A very effective way to achieve this is if data resides only at the owner’s side. The universal acceptance and use of the internet makes the decentralization of personal data possible. The basic axiom of this work is that personal data is a person’s private property and each person should have absolute ownership and control over her personal data.