What’s All the Fuss About?

Microsoft is creating a bank for your data, and wants to give you the key

Project Bali

What is it?

Microsoft’s attempt to make sure it doesn’t end up losing public trust like Facebook. It’s a “personal data bank” letting you see and control how much information Microsoft holds on you.

And how much info is that?

A lot more than you’d think. Depending on your privacy settings, it knows where you are, which programs you use, what you’ve searched for on its browser Edge, what you’ve told Cortana to do, and more.

Why does it need this data?

Two main reasons: to predict what you want to search for in order to provide recommendations (and a more “personalised” Windows); and to show adverts “that you’re more likely to be interested in”.

So it comes down to money?

Partly, yes. Microsoft doesn’t rely on advertising to the same extent as Google and Facebook, but it can’t afford to ignore this source of revenue. The problem for Microsoft is that with every passing scandal about Facebook misusing personal data, calls for the tech industry to be regulated get louder. It hopes to avoid this by being seen to have taken the initiative, giving users control of their data before governments force them to.

Doesn’t Microsoft’s Privacy Dashboard already do that?

To some extent. Visit https://account. microsoft.com/privacy (see screenshot below left) to stop Microsoft tracking your location, monitoring how you use Cortana and Edge, and knowing what you search for on Bing. But Project Bali promises to offer even more options, including “monetising” your data.

How would that work?

You’d sell chunks of your data to companies, who’d use it to target adverts and marketing campaigns at you. Some analysts see this as a solution to the conflict between user privacy and websites’ need for data, allowing them to legitimately collect the information they require to sell adverts. No companies have made this concept work yet, giving Microsoft the chance to steal a march on rivals.

Has Project Bali launched yet?

No, it’s one of those Microsoft rumours that, once leaked, typically spreads quickly through the web. But it has a website ( www.snipca.com/30278, see main screenshot), which says it’s being developed by Microsoft Research, a division of the company that employs over 1,000 people and works on cutting-edge areas of computing such as artificial intelligence.

It’s currently what Microsoft geekily calls an “incubation project”, meaning an idea that has “strong potential”, pursued by staff who want the chance to do “something creative in an area they find the most fascinating”. It was inspired by a 2014 paper published by three Microsoft Research employees on ‘Inverse Privacy’ ( www.snipca.com/30254).

What’s that?

It describes an item of personal information that a company or organisation has access to, but the person doesn’t. The paper’s authors said bodies like health services, the police and supermarkets are all guilty of this. Their conclusion is that companies will eventually start competing with each other to offer customers access to their data, and that Microsoft should spearhead the movement.

Isn’t Sir Tim Berners-lee working on something similar?

Actually, it’s the complete opposite. His new project Solid ( https://solid.mit.edu) aims to “decentralise” the internet by letting you keep your data in pods, separate from the “data banks” envisaged by Bali. We wrote about it in Issue 539’s ‘What’s All the Fuss About?’, predicting tech giants would fight back. Project Bali might be the first response from a worried tech establishment.