There is plenty of money to be made by harvesting and selling data — both legally and illegally — but what about protecting it on a user’s behalf? While technology has made life a lot easier in many ways, events of the last couple of years — 2017’s massive Equifax data breach and Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example — have forced users to confront the possible pitfalls awaiting those who leave digital footprints all over the internet, or entrust their personal information to third parties. These three Seattle-based companies are working at the cutting edge of technology in an effort to make the internet a safer place, and tip the scales back in favor of personal privacy.
Founded: 2016
Funding: $14.6 million
Protecting: Networks and data from malicious intrusion
Details: Rubica bills itself as “your personal cyber ops team.” The company’s range of subscription services protect individual users, families and businesses from phishing and malicious sites, malware, identity theft, malicious downloads and pop-ups, cryptocurrency theft and other privacy-related attacks. Rubica delivers these services with an app that runs in the background on smartphones, tablets and desktop computers, allowing Rubica’s team to monitor for indicators of suspicious behavior. With offices in San Francisco and Seattle, the company’s staff includes cybersecurity experts with experience at the Department of Defense, the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Founded: 2016
Protecting: Browser data from online trackers
Details: Tenta Browser features automatic data encryption, VPN protection, blockchain protocol access and ad tracking blockers as a standard, providing users with a private, secure way to browse the internet. Co-founders Jen McEwen and Jesse Adams came up with the idea after a decade working on an adult entertainment app store, and fielding numerous requests for various privacy features. “Mainstream browsers need your data,” Adams told KUOW in 2016, “And so if you want to go private they just make that so inconvenient to do so. You have to learn a lot more about your data, you have to install extensions and plugins and a variety of VPN services and proxies … and it’s too complicated for most people to think about.”
Founded: 2017
Protecting: Digital identities
Details: Using open-source blockchain technology, lifeID seeks to place users in control of their digital identities and make sensitive online activities, like transferring money or verifying income to qualify for a loan, safer. To do this, the company is working on an open, public identity protocol for blockchain ecosystems, designed to ensure privacy and security for all transactions. The idea is to allow consumers to choose exactly how much information they’d like to share in each transaction. LifeID offers integration with a variety of mobile and Web 2.0 applications to add blockchain-based identity authentication to existing services.
