FAQ

We are rapidly accelerating towards a fully digital economy. In the last decade, connectivity became commonplace as we saw 3.9 billion people get mobile internet access. In turn, every business has become a digital business, and mobile wallets have become a norm for transacting across our digital and physical lives as forecasts indicate over 5 billion digital wallets will be in use in 2026. In the next decade, we will see the rise of AI in our everyday lives as the AI market is expected to grow 35% YoY. As a result, data – which will underpin all facets of digitalization – will boom as the global datasphere will grow 30%+ YoY.

However, today’s data governance model is constrained with a myriad of challenges. For an enterprise, the 5 most common issues relevant to UWI we are hearing as we test the market are around data quality, compliance, interoperability, transparency, and authenticity.

Data Quality is paramount because inaccurate end-user data leads to experiences that convey enterprises don’t truly know their consumers.

Complexities around Data Compliance are constantly evolving and creating more sensitivity and risk around user data. For example, GDPR fines can be up to 4% of a company’s global annual revenue from the previous fiscal year.

Data Interoperability between organizations and even within an organization is limited and tends to be characterized by data silos that lead to fragmented experiences with isolated pockets of information. Today, many organizations can’t easily share data within their systems or with others.

Lack of Transparency in data practices erodes consumer trust and weakens brand confidence. Companies that fail to be open about how they collect and use data risk losing customer sentiment.

Lastly, in the age of AI, we see growing concerns around Authenticity and the need to protect company IP and data, as well as the need to protect users from deepfakes and fraud.

This combination of challenges is creating a growing cost burden for enterprises and limiting their ability to build deep customer relationships.

Consumers feel like technology is happening to them, rather than for them. We have more choice and access than ever before, but that creates an overwhelming digital life to manage. 30 years ago, we didn’t have any of this, which means that in a brief period of time we have experienced a major shift in how we live our lives. Overall, we see a sense of “digital overload” across our everyday lives, with consumers feeling that their needs are not being met due to:

• Relevance: Every brand claims to deliver “personalized” experiences, but consumers do not feel that their brand relationships are sufficiently tailored for them. Consumers receive an endless array of ads that they don’t care about, and true relevance is lost in the process.

• Transparency & Control: Consumers want more visibility and ownership over how their data is collected, stored, and used. Generally, consumers must consent to Terms & Conditions that they rarely read and therefore have no idea what they just signed up for. Moreover, they don’t have an easy way to revoke their consent.

• Experience: Every day, consumers are juggling their digital experiences, bouncing from app to app and screen to screen, leading to fractured customer journeys. Brands are missing out on delivering a connected, seamless user experience that builds affinity and customer loyalty.

Consumers are no longer satisfied with generic messaging and mass-marketing approaches and want more from the brands with which they engage. They are craving personalized interactions and a sense of genuine connection with the companies they interact with.

Clearly, the world is quickly moving towards a fully digital economy, but consumers need more simplicity, value, and trust.

In a user centric data governance model, the situation changes from users making the connections themselves across platforms and applications, to an integrated experience layer where all aspects of their digital life – their identity, money, and objects – are now interconnected to create new forms of value. This type of data model is built on user agency with security, privacy, and trust at the core.

Security is built on having control of your data, knowing who has access to it and for how long. Privacy is built on having transparency around your data, knowing where your data exists and with whom. And trust is built on having sovereignty of your data, granting access to the minimal amount of information as and when needed.

With this, we build a trust equation where “I have control, I see what you see, and you see what I see” can lead to strong relationships.

Under this model consumers go:

FROM worrying about their credit card info or data being exposed TO securely storing and managing their data.

• FROM feeling like their online activity is constantly being tracked (like receiving unwanted ads) TO consented interaction (like personalized recommendations) knowing who has access to their data and for how long, with the ability to revoke that access anytime.

• FROM feeling overwhelmed with their digital lives TO having seamless orchestrated experiences across their favorite brands.

• These core principles of a user centric data governance model are enabled by the distributed architecture designed for interoperability, developed with open standards, and orchestrated by privacy preserving intelligence.

By putting users at the center of the data model, this creates better experiences for consumers and valuable high-quality insights for enterprises.

Organizations globally are grappling with two seemingly contradictory trends. On one hand, both users and governments are increasingly concerned about data security, driving the demand for stringent regulations and robust data protection standards. On the other hand, users are demanding more personalized services that require the collection and analysis of their personal data. Simultaneously, enterprises are preparing for rapid AI adoption, which necessitates access to reliable, trusted, and customer-consented data to train AI models tailored to specific business use cases.

This tension is further amplified by the dominance of big tech companies pushing proprietary wallet solutions and applications, creating oligopolistic ecosystems that further complicate the landscape.

In this environment, the need for a solution like UWI is more critical than ever. UWI strikes a strategic balance between these conflicting forces by providing a secure, user-centric environment that enables data ownership while fostering innovation. UWI offers:

• Data Monetization: UWI provides optionality for users to monetize their personal data by providing access to enterprises that require authentic, trusted, privacy-preserving zero-party data. This data can be leveraged to drive more informed, data-driven decision-making and support AI model training, enhancing the accuracy and relevance of enterprise-specific use cases.

• Personalized Service Offerings: As enterprises within the UWI ecosystem begin to have access to highly relevant and consented personal data, they gain the ability to offer users more relevant, personalized experiences. This creates a win-win scenario where users are rewarded with tailored offers, exclusive deals, and other customized benefits delivering both value and enhanced customer satisfaction.

The issuance of official credentials remains, for the most part, the responsibility of government authorities. Governments are tasked with ensuring the security, legitimacy, and authenticity of these credentials, which include key identifiers such as national IDs, digital identities, and other official documents. UWI is designed to seamlessly integrate and leverage these government-issued credentials, supporting widely recognized standards and protocols to ensure compliance and interoperability across various systems.

UWI’s platform is fully capable of accepting and securely managing government-issued credentials, including digital identities, directly within the ecosystem. This allows for the smooth issuance, validation, and use of credentials within UWI, ensuring that users can authenticate their identity with trusted, authoritative sources. By adhering to established standards, UWI ensures that these credentials are not only secure but also compatible with existing infrastructure across various sectors.

Moreover, UWI offers robust capabilities in credential and token management, allowing for the handling of a wide variety of standardized credentials and tokens. This includes everything from digital IDs and government certifications to authentication tokens and access credentials, ensuring that the platform can manage the full lifecycle of credentials, issuance, verification, updating, and revocation.

We also maintain ongoing collaboration with government agencies, regulatory bodies, and standards organizations to stay current with the latest developments in credentialing systems, regulatory changes, and industry best practices. This proactive engagement helps us ensure that UWI is always aligned with the evolving landscape and complies with the latest privacy and security regulations.

Today, we are seeing an abundance of AI-generated content, including deepfakes and fake news, which is creating a growing need to verify what is real vs what is not. This lack of trust and authenticity severely limits the ability for enterprises to deliver truly human experiences.

We are moving towards a world where AI will be embedded across everything we do and everywhere we go. The Agentic Web will soon form, where autonomous AI agents will act on behalf of users, managing tasks, collaborating with other AI agents, and make decisions aligned with individual preferences and business goals. These AI agents will learn, evolve, and grow more efficient through collaboration, but the right standards and responsible frameworks need to exist to trust agentic AIs.

In this model, UWI plays a critical role in establishing trust, as it provides a secure foundation for managing and trusting a user’s or an AI agent’s identity and their data in the Agentic Web, enabling a future where digital interactions are not only autonomous but also user-centered and privacy-preserving.

Data that is directly provided by a consumer to an enterprise is also known as zero-party data. It is considered high-quality data as it is actively and explicitly shared and does not rely on third-party entities that typically collect data from various sources like data brokers or social media platforms.

Enterprises are gradually using this type of data, adapting their processes along the way. Initially, zero-party data serves as an additional tool in their data arsenal. Then, they progress to using it as a crucial decision-making engine for direct consumer engagement, fostering deeper relationships. Finally, enterprises view zero-party data as a central point for user engagement, allowing users to decide what data to share and when, while prioritizing privacy.

Throughout the adoption cycle, we except consumer-centric businesses to face integration challenges. As the infrastructure enabler, we’ll design a solution that minimizes these challenges. Our intent is not to require businesses to re-invent their data governance models. Instead, we propose using the UWI as a channel, seamlessly integrating zero-party data into enterprise systems.

Our goal is to avoid immediate changes to legacy processes. Leveraging zero-party data positively impacts existing governance models with minimal disruption. Once businesses prove the value of the UWI, they can scale usage and start transforming processes. However, they can continue leveraging the platform if the value isn’t sufficient.

Over time, we expect a mix of users, some fully transformed while others maintain existing processes. Our preference lies with clients transforming their digital experiences around the UWI. We recognize this change will be gradual, but our ambition is to reinvent the user engagement data model, which is core to our ambition to become a leading Web3 Infrastructure player.