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After a number of high profile data breaches, at companies like Facebook, Equifax and British Airways, and with GDPR continuing to make ripples across many industries, it may have been welcome news that Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, has stepped into the fray with a new invention that promises to give people more control of their data.
The new, open-source technology, named Solid, allows people to store their data in one central location, where they can decide what they want to share with which companies and sites. The goal is to empower people and remove the need for personal data to be held by various third party companies.
Could this, or a technology like this, be the answer to the ongoing problems of repeat and fraudulent participants?
Its been considered before; our company developed a system to monitor research participation and identify fake identities, but its only ever effective if were the exclusive supplier because different field agencies have different systems — or none at all. A shared platform of participants whove opted in would limit this but such an approach would require more than a revolution in technology — it would need a revolution in thinking, too.
Gemma Shevlin
Operations Director, Acumen Fieldwork
This article was first published in InBrief magazine, December 2018
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2018
About the author

Gemma Shevlin
Gemma graduated from Leeds University with an undergraduate degree in Sociology in and went on to complete a post graduate diploma in Social Research and Statistics at the University of Manchester in 2008. Since joining Acumen as a fieldwork manager in 2009 Gemma has moved from a line manager role to become Head of the Qualitative Department. Whilst overseeing the Qual team Gemma manages a wide range of projects with an affinity for harder to reach specs and demands.
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Gemma Shevlin