Introduction

The data economy is flourishing and growing with each year - larger and larger amounts of data are being exchanged and large value is generated. In recent years, the issue of personal data mishandling has become a visible and large problem. Companies are losing trust of consumers, that they are handling their data appropriately and privacy issues are being raised in the media due to the numerous data leaks and manipulation stemming from data misuse.

The erosion of trust is not only problematic for individual companies but also the data economy as a whole. General data protection regulation of the EU and some other initiatives attempt to tackle these issues. Those companies that manage to keep or gain customer’s trust will prevail - therefore some have already started positioning themselves as privacy respecting and enabling.

Swarm is meant to be one of the pillars of the Ethereum network, providing the storage aspect. In that regard, it is designed from the ground up to work in a “trustless” manner, putting the control in the hands of the individuals. Privacy and anonymity are baked into its logic. These features can be applied more broadly, to the data economy.

Different business models might have to be adopted. However, new avenues open up for the data economy - peer-to-peer cloud is possible, forming the basis for the European data space and sharing of data on many dimensions. Swarm includes an incentive layer that guarantees the network stability and compensation for nodes supporting it.

By using Swarm, organisations gain these advantages and signal to consumers that they respect their privacy and their sovereignty over data.

The contents of Swarm Enterprise Hub are based largely on the whitepaper "Swarm storage aspects for enterprises : regaining of sovereignty and trust in the data economy", which addresses these issues in even more detail and provides examples of integrations of Swarm into solutions. To request access to the whitepaper please contact us via email.