Consumers from all over the world will know by now how bad companies and even governments are at protecting sensitive data. Now that the political campaign in the US is in full effect, even more data is being collected than before. But without proper security precautions, such as distributed ledgers, there is no safeguarding to speak of. Any scenario in which a human element is involved can become corruptible sooner or later.
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Distributed Ledgers Will Keep Us Safe
Not too long ago, close to 200 million US voters have had their personal details exposed due to insufficient database protection. Abysmal cybersecurity practices should be punished more severely, yet in the case of governments and politicians, there is no one lifting a finger to dish out any measure of punishment.
Especially online political campaign services are to blame, as the primary function of these platforms is to harvest as much consumer data as they possibly can. Voter data should not be among that collected information, but things are quite different when politics are involved these days. There is no telling how much information is gathered from every move one makes during political campaigns.
Putting together an entire profile on people one had never met sounds very scary, and consumers have every right to be scared. Politicians and the companies responsible for running their campaigns know far more about us then we would like to admit, or even think of. Instead of protecting this treasure trove of data with proper security countermeasures, most platforms and databases can be cracked by one with some computer knowledge.
This information is in stark contrast with the proposals for weakening encryption on mobile devices. If governments can’t be trusted to keep our information safe, why would they need more details on anyone? And what is even more worrying: what are they using these details for in the first place?
Properly securing consumer data should be at the top of the priority list for any politician, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, most politicians have little to no computer skills to speak of, so why are we putting them in charge of our personal data? Distributed ledgers hold the key to solving these issues once and for all.
By removing both the central points of failure and the human element form the equation, distributed ledgers are the perfect solution to safeguard consumer data. Moreover, governments can not control distributed ledgers – such as the one underpinning the Bitcoin protocol – which is an added bonus.
Source: The Verge
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