Data Account and Wallet Guide

Updated on: 24 January, 2024

1. Personal Data Accounts & Data Wallet

Dataswyft provides individuals with Personal Data Accounts (PDAs) and Data Wallets by provisioning a decentralised-data server ("DDS") called a “HAT Microserver” through which individuals can store, own, control, use and share their personal data.

Data Accounts are compartments within the server database that are linked to third party Applications (called a "Network Enabled Application" or "NEA"). NEAs use data accounts to store the data they generate and acquire about you so that you, and only you have access to it.

Using your DDS, you can:

  • Sign up and Log in to NEAs

  • Transform data within your DDS database with DDS tools

  • Stream media from DDS

Using PDAs, you can enable NEAs to:

  • Store, retrieve, update and delete information

Using Data Wallets, you can enable NEAs to:

  • Provide access to your data

  • Deny access to your data

  • Share your data with other NEAs.

  • Verify the data in your data account

Contracted PDA 

If you are given a “contracted PDA” , then your PDA is issued as part of a contract with a CONTRACTED SERVICE PROVIDER that you have given permission to access a namespace or data within a namespace of your PDA. A contracted PDA namespace may be used to store your records as an employee, or as a student or any other contracts with a contracted service provider. You will be explicitly asked, when you sign up to the application of a contracted service provider to accept the contract, and you can choose not to do so. Even if you do choose to accept the contract, the contracted service provider can only access the designated namespaces and data that you have given permissions on. You may still use your PDA with other applications without revealing the data of other namespaces to the contracted service provider.

2. HAT Microserver Instructions (HMIs)

Dataswyft is an enabler of all connections between the data accounts of your DDS and the NEAs you have signed up to. Dataswyft has no access to any of the data. We act upon your instructions to enable the connections through a set of HAT Microserver Instructions ("HMI"). These are presented to you when you first sign in to an NEA and when you wish to transfer, or share the data with other NEAs.

These instructions are used to provide permissions to NEAs and to Dataswyft to enable the connections to NEAs.

HMIs will be presented to you for every NEA that wishes to interact with your PDA and your confirmation is required before the request is fulfilled.  HMIs will be presented to you through a standard interface with the following information:

• the HMI ID and version number for the NEA requesting it together with the legal owner of the NEA;

• the type of access into your PDA by the NEA

• the purpose of using your PDA by the NEA

• the duration of access into your PDA by the NEA

• the Dataswyft One Platform rating declared by the NEA.

The Dataswyft One Platform rating assurance is the data conduct declared by the NEA owner.  You can see the rating of all NEAs here. If you discover the rating declaration to be false, you should report it immediately.

When you confirm the HMI, details of the HMI will be logged by Dataswyft as a confirmation of your permissible instruction and Dataswyft will then enable the connection between your PDA and the NEA and log the legal contract between you and the NEA owner.

3. Network-enabled applications (NEAs)

NEAs are applications owned by third-parties that may or may not be part of our Services.  Such applications are licensed and not sold to you and your licence to use the NEAs will be dependent on your acceptance of additional terms (including in some instances payment terms) contained in an End User Licence Agreement for the NEA (see below) that you will need to accept before using the application. 

4. NEA-enabled tools

NEA-enabled tools (“Tools”) means internal computational tools within your DDS that are called on when you are using an NEA that generate insights from your PDA data.  The insights from these tools remain private unless you choose to share them. The Tools are codes that transform your data through computations such as analytic functions or algorithmic functions.  These Tools may or may not be part of our Services.  These Tools are uploaded into our Smart HAT Engine (“SHE”) service and do not interact with any other data except the data you hold in your PDA. 

5. How to complain about an NEA

Contact the NEA owner

If you have a complaint regarding a NEA, it is best to first ask the NEA owner involved to put things right. Contact the NEA owner as soon as possible. It is usually best to write to them so you have a record of what you say. The NEA owners we authorise must respond to your complaint in writing within 2 weeks, telling you whether the complaint has been successful or why they need more time to look into it. NEA owners are also required to respond in writing just to let you know they have received your complaint. So be sure you have a final response or it has been 2 weeks since you complained before you contact Dataswyft.

Contact Dataswyft‍

If you are not happy with the NEA owner's response, they reject your complaint, or you do not hear from them within 2 weeks, Dataswyft may be able to help you. Dataswyft will ask the NEA owner to explain what it thinks happened and then decide whether to uphold your complaint.

HCF

If the matter cannot be resolved by Dataswyft, then you can take your complaint to the HAT Community Foundation at contact@hatcommunity.org. All NEA owners are regulated through the HAT Community Foundation and  DDS owners are owner members of the Foundation. It is important you contact the HAT Community Foundation within 2 months of receiving a final response from the NEA owner, or it may not be able to deal with your complaint.

Arbitration and Litigation

If you do not want to accept a decision by the HAT Community Foundation, you have the option to enter into Arbitration to seek a remedy before considering litigation.

In the event of litigation, you would usually start civil legal action in the county courts or High Court (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), depending on the circumstances of the case. In Scotland, most small claims are started in the Sheriff Courts. Claimants that are not residents of the United Kingdom should seek legal advice regarding civil legal action within their country of residence.

6. Who regulates Dataswyft?

  • The HAT Community Foundation, which regulates Dataswyft as a “HAT Platform Provider”.  This means Dataswyft is a certified technology provider for the provisioning of DDS, issuance of PDAs, and for enabling the connections between NEAs, and for the conduct of the HAT ecosystem;

  • The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the UK under reference number 829529 for FCA regulated account information of DDS owners (i.e. account information obtained from FCA regulated banks and financial institutions);

  • The Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number ZA244725 as our lead data protection authority globally for Dataswyft account data used to create DDS.

7. How to protect yourself

We want DDS owners to enjoy the full benefits of their PDA, however there are some important things you should be aware of. 

  • Be alert – It is the responsibility of DDS owners to protect against any unauthorised access to their PDAs

  • Keep your password or other access information secret. Your password and log-in details are personal to you and should not be given to anyone else or used to provide shared access.

  • Do not share PDAs - Ensure that no-one else uses your PDAs, and that you do use any account data or account of any other PDAs Owner or person than yourself without permission of the DDS Owner or person holding the respective account.

  • Make sure to update regularly - Keep your data in the PDA useful and accurate through available DDS tools, apps and plugs and updating the said tools, apps and plugs when necessary.

  • Maintain good internet security practices.