Belgian Region Trials Web Founder's Data Privacy System

The Belgian region of Flanders is rolling out personal data "pods" to 7 million citizens in a trial of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee's vision for user-controlled data privacy. Five Belgian hospitals have begun storing patient visit information in the data pods, developed by Berners-Lee's startup Inrupt over the past five years. The system aims to help compliance with European privacy regulations by giving citizens control over their personal information, from medical records to social media posts. The initiative counters the current internet landscape dominated by major technology companies like Google and Meta, which store user data across their servers. Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, advocates for returning data control to users through decentralized systems rather than leaving it vulnerable to harvesting by tech platforms and governments.

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