Shawn Buckles is a student from the Netherlands who wants to sell you his soul. Or rather, he wants to sell you everything there is to know about him, from his online viewing habits to his thoughts and email conversations.
On 12 April, 2014, the highest bidder will receive:
Shawn's personal records, location records, medical records, train travel records, personal calendar, email conversations, online conversations, social media conversations, consumer preferences, browser history and finally, his thoughts.
But is he serious? "Yes, I am entirely serious," explains Shawn to Wired.co.uk. "As an artist I was thinking about using my data to address current privacy concerns for a long time.
Then a Dutch television programme (Tegenlicht by VPRO) broadcasted a documentary about big data, which triggered the idea to sell my personal data. I thought: oh, the irony."
Shawn soon set up a website and an online bidding system. However, there are some pitfalls to selling every email and online conversation you've ever had, namely, other people: "Yes, there are privacy concerns," he said, "after the auction I'll start negotiations with the highest bidder. One of my terms is the right to protect others' privacy, as they're only buying my data and not that of my friends. I will seek advice from a lawyer to protect my and other peoples rights. I will also inform my relations my conversations will be sold."
This is not the first time someone has tried to sell his or her personal data. Federico Zannier of Brooklyn, New York famously had a similar idea in 2013 after growing tired of being exploited by advertisers. "I spend hours every day surfing the internet", explains Zannier on his website, "meanwhile, companies like Facebook and Google have been using my online information (the websites I visit, the friends I have, the videos I watch) for their own benefit."
Zannier opted for a different business model, however.
Rather than selling a large collection of data for one lump sum, Zannier offered daily, weekly and monthly deals, starting from as little as $2 (£1.21).
This is where Shawn and Zannier differ. The effective monetisation of his own private data is not Shawn's main incentive. "I'm aware that one man's data is currently sold for less than one euro, and that data is worth much more in vast amounts. I have no expectations," he said.
Instead, Shawn is more concerned with highlighting what he sees as widespread security issues. "Privacy is something of the past, and that concerns me," explains Shawn. "I have nothing to hide (under current civil law) but I'd rather decide for myself who's getting my data and for what reasons. People don't seem to understand that privacy and autonomy are very much related and that privacy is a necessity for developing one's individual, character and ethics. We ourselves are the biggest collectors of data and are giving it away for free by using services such as Facebook and Google. My biggest concern is governments misusing this data. We're silently consenting a surveillance state, by making all this data available for free."
Shawn hopes the data will ultimately be used for research or for "an in-depth profile on people like me by a charity or a noble cause." He said he wasn't worried about what people may find out about him -- the worst case scenario is they'll discover he has watched porn, "but now they know", Shawn confessed.
Shawn hopes that his stunt will put the data trade in perspective and will encourage people to seriously reconsider how much information they're freely giving away to large corporations and governments. It's better to manage your own privacy, insists Shawn, and if it's possible to make a profit along the way, "why not?"
How much do you think Shawn Buckles is worth? Let him know by placing a bid on his website.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
