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August 15, 2012

Personal – Keep Private Information Secure

It seems like nothing is truly personal these days. People routinely find their home phone numbers or addresses listed online, and it’s not uncommon for personal information like a person’s golf handicaps or pet names to show up on various social networking websites. Personal is looking to change that, by providing people with an all-new way to securely share sensitive information online.

Personal is a web-application that you can use to share virtually any type of data in a private way. Busy executives, for example, may be interested in using Personal to share their contact information, Wi-Fi logins, and even golf handicaps with clients and colleagues at work. Meanwhile, busy moms may be more interested in giving their babysitters access to their children’s medical records, emergency contact information, and food allergies before going away for the weekend. In both cases, Personal would provide a way to share this information safely and securely online. Users can decide which trusted friends, family members, colleagues, and service providers should get access to which types of information, and they can store their most sensitive data in “Gems,” or private data vaults, as a way to ensure prying eyes won’t find a way in.

People who use Personal’s mobile application on their iPhones and Android devices can have access to all the web-app’s most powerful tools when they’re not at home, making it easy to give a babysitter access to Wi-Fi passwords or a spouse access to health insurance information without sharing that information over an unsecure email or text message network.

Practical Uses:

  • Let your husband know your children’s after school schedules
  • Share your Wi-Fi password with visiting guests at your home
  • Make sure your assistant knows your computer login
  • Post your children’s food allergies in an accessible spot online

Insider Tips:

  • Personal relies on “Gems,” which are secure data containers, for storing private information
  • Sensitive information posted in Personal is automatically encrypted
  • Personal users can download the mobile app for the iPhone or Android
  • Users can search through data in their vaults by keyword

What we liked:

  • Users retain full ownership over all their private data
  • Parents can post information for their babysitters online, rather than relying on Post-Its
  • Users can give their colleagues or friends access to selected “Gems”
  • Personal lets people download existing data from LinkedIn and Facebook

What we didn’t like:

  • Nothing

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: November 2011
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: Washington, DC
  • Founded by: Shane Green and Tarik Kurspahic
  • Web site: http://www.personal.com

Costs:

  • Free

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