The birth of the Universal Digital Profile
One key article is the right to personal data portability. In a nutshell, it states that users of a service can request their personal data to be transferred to another provider, without hindrance (read: in the format the other provider requests). This means that if you are no longer happy using a social network, you can switch to another one and have all of your personal data (profile, pictures, messages, posts, likes…) sent to the new provider. It’s the same idea as being able to keep your phone number when you change carrier, but applied to all of your personal data.
Although the definition of what constitutes your personal profile is still being debated (is it just the data you uploaded, or all the data that was derived from it? Does it include metadata?), it is safe to say that a big part of your online identity will soon be transferable across multiple providers.
As these data transfer requests become more and more common, companies will necessarily want to minimize the effort it takes to comply. The only logical thing to do to avoid having to convert data into each provider’s format is to eventually agree on standardized formats for personal data and APIs used to access them.
As this Universal Digital Profile (UDP) starts becoming mainstream, an entire new economy will emerge, from personal data clouds to personal identity aggregators or data monetization platforms.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/22/the-birth-of-the-universal-digital-profile/