Personal, Your Private Network and Central Data Vault

Zach Davis Mar 15, 2012 Tweet

Society is becoming ever more transparent.  What we’re doing, who we’re doing it with, and where we’re doing it is now being broadcast for any and all who wants to see.  Not all information is meant to be shared openly and freely however.  Your breakfast burrito, sure (if you must).  Your wi-fi password, probably not.  What if there was a way to safely store these more private pieces of information and seamlessly share with the select few who should know?

With Personal, there is.

“Personal is a private, personal network and data vault for individuals to manage and control access to their digital information,” explains Personal co-founder, President/CEO Shane Green.

Think of Personal as a safe of your personal data, but you want to share certain pieces of data with certain people.  Instead of writing out instructions for your kids dietary needs for each subsequent babysitter or having to retrace your steps looking for directions to the hard-to-find private oceanside hike, Personal keeps all of this information in one central location, accessible across all platforms, and removes the redundancies of duplicate sharing.

Although Facebook allows you to share your favorite wines with your friends, the ad of Wine Library TV’s competitor sitting adjacent to your profile is the cost.  Green believes there are less intrusive ways to share this information:

“Today, companies capture, exploit and benefit from people’s data in privacy-invasive ways….We think it’s time people enjoy the power of their data in their lives.”

And although Personal wants you to regain control of your data, Green realizes that it’s not an either/or versus the traditional social networks.  Personal isn’t competition to Facebook, but a complement.  ”It will become easier and easier to decide whether social networks or private networks are appropriate to a given context. I don’t think it will be one or the other,” Green adds. “People will learn to effortlessly switch between them.”

Note: The Washington D.C. based startup was one of the featured startups at the recent Tech Cocktail #Startuplife celebration.