The digital life journey describes us from our birth to our death. This leads to the following question: Would it be possible to describe the individual citizen in their entirety by combining all their data – the "digital me" so to speak? This digital life journey shows how each person can regain sovereignty over their data, and how society, technology, ethics, law, and economics have to work together.
As the digitization of everyday life continues, we are perceiving many digital achievements as assisting us in our living and working environments. Most of these new digital services are based on data, or in more concrete terms, our personal data. Making a list of who processes which of our data for what purposes appears virtually impossible. There is a need to restore the citizen’s sovereignty over the use of their data.
We refer to the current development stage as the "digital shadow". Everything around us is a sensor and captures data that describe us. Decisions regarding the use of these data are made solely by the respective provider. The next stage will be the "digital me" since data will be converged into an integrated image of us for the first time. An ecosystem across service provider boundaries is a prerequisite for this. Ultimately, the "personal digital twin" is no longer merely a representation of data, but also of behavior to enable autonomous interaction with an ecosystem. With this app solution, Fraunhofer ISST illustrates the technical as well as regulatory and social frameworks that are required to realize this.
The digital life journey clearly shows that digital transformation does not only mean the introduction of new technologies, but demands new methods and approaches to dealing with digitization in society. The framework requires interdisciplinary collaboration to implement the target dimensions of society, technology, ethics, law, and economy.
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering