A privacy and security pledge

Update - <2022-10-18 Tue> - I just also found out about The Santa Clara Principles - it’s not exactly what I’m thinking about, but it’s interesting as a model and has input from the EFF, ACLU, and The Brennan Center for what it’s worth.

I’m thinking about building a piece of software…more than that actually. Been designing it for a while now and there are certain values I’m trying to bring to the project. Things to do with what I want and feel is right around privacy, data-ownership, security. Values that I want the software I buy and use to hold as well. It got me thinking that I’d like to sign some kind of pledge of user-goodwill on topics like these.

I found the Student Privacy Pledge 2020 and this resembles what I’m looking for “…a voluntary but legally binding industry pledge…”. I want the more broad version that goes beyond just students…and I want it vetted, or even better written, by a substantial data privacy advocate like the EFF.

Draft of something like the following, first from the users’ perspective and then followed by the statements I as a software company will agree to.

I, the user:

• want to own my data
• want to have a choice in the services where that data gets stored
• want to have the option to only store data on my device
• want to have any centralized data store with end-to-end encryption
• want to know by sight that my data is encrypted in transit (bring green browser locks to mobile apps)
• want to be able to sell access to my data and reap some benefit (discounts, pay, other perks)
• want to be able to revoke that sale and know my data is destroyed
• want to be able to specify the duration from 1 month to 1 year and beyond
• want to control the marketplace for my data

I, the software maker agree to the demands above:

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Jake Levine, Software Maker of the future