Nobody likes being tracked, but the power of Big Data depends on gathering knowledge about user behavior and purchasing choices. Kaliya Hamlin, founder of She’s Geeky, offered several models at Grace Hopper 2015 that could make this gathering of data more ethical.

In an interview with theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Grace Hopper Celebration of Woman In Computing event, Hamlin explained her ideas, as well as her nickname, “Identity Woman,” to theCUBE cohost Jeff Frick.

“I started blogging back in the day when blogging started,” Hamlin said. “You needed a cute name for your blog. And I was the only woman I’d met working on digital identities, so I figured that should be the name of my blog. And then it kind of stuck where people in my industry just started calling me that, like ‘Hey, Identity Woman!’ and I was like OK, I’ll own it.”

The personal data ecosystem

Hamlin spoke on the ethics of the personal data ecosystem and ensuring that data is centered around and benefitting the individuals generating it rather than just the businesses that are harvesting and selling it.

Her proposal would allow businesses to connect with user data, but on their terms and only as far as individuals are comfortable with it. This would make the exchange of data voluntary and transparent rather than secretive and without user knowledge.

One model that would still allow advertisers to target interested people with deals (and save users money) is that of infomediary services. “Right now we end up giving all of our own personal information away, and then say we are looking at buying a house and getting a mortgage, or buying a car, or a life event like having a baby or getting married, then all of that stuff kind of stalks us around the web forever even after we’ve made those purchases,” she said.

In this model, “Someone could build those infomediary services and help us get the benefits of the market without leaking all of … who we are,” Hamlin added.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Woman In Computing. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SIliconANGLE