Data privacy is an important consideration for AI systems, as these systems often rely on large amounts of data to function effectively. IDLab is working together with Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, on what they call an extension of the existing internet to safeguard data, a technology called Solid. As opposed to modern-day companies storing and collecting their users’ data in ‘data silos’ where each company protects its data from others, SOLID enables a decentralized way of storing data in a personal data pod. If, for example, a user migrates to another service, his/her data pod will move along. In that way, users can keep control over their own data and decide what they share, and with whom.
IDLab (leading the SOLIDLab initiative from the Flemish government) is responsible for tackling the technological challenges and standardisation requirements needed to facilitate the setup and deployment of decentralised personal data pods on a wide scale. These technical challenges cover multiple aspects, including scalable and decentralized querying and reasoning over semantic data , stream data processing and aggregation across a large number of SOLID pods, etc., all contributing to building sustainable decentralized Web applications on top of SOLID data pods.
SOLID technology is applicable to all domains where (personal) data-driven services come into play, including healthcare, retail, HR, finance, insurance, education, etc.
