Owning your own data sounds good. Unfortunately, once you share a piece of data, it's out there forever.<p>What we all need is to have our own personal servers that validate tokens. Then we would just give out these one-time use tokens to people or institutions. Does the bank need a SSN? Well, here is an auto-generated token. Bank stores that, but to validate it, it calls your personal little server, which checks for use.<p>Unfortunately, systems are built which require personal information. So eventually, for example, the government or a third party service to get credit reports needs your actual SSN. Then you are hosed.<p>Alternatively, all information could be free, but ALL systems would require your personal server for "permission to use." That of course is highly complicated.<p>The problem is everybody / every app thinks they <i>need</i> some piece of information. It bothers me when I go to a weekend clinic to take my son and they ask for an SSN. Why? I am going to pay you and walk out of here. "We need to send the report to your real pediatrician." well, just send it. It's not like they wont be able to file it.<p>I hope somebody smart comes up with a definitive solution, but a lot of processes, people's attitudes and systems need to be recreated from scratch.