Systems that manage personal information offer some control over online data

It’s nearly impossible for consumers to keep track of—or to know who has access to—their personal information in an increasingly digital world. Companies that have established an online database for consumers to keep secured digital records of personal information now are positioning themselves as a means to you to regain some control over your personal information.

OwnYourInfo is one of the latest U.S. companies to create a such an online data-management system. For a fee of $5 a month, an OwnYourInfo account holder can store  personal, financial, career and medical information for himself/herself and multiple family members on the company’s database and access it from any computer or smartphone. OwnYourInfo account holders have control over who can receive, view or print a document. Mark Black, who is the founder of OwnYourInfo, says the system is a convenient way to store and access family members’ medication lists or insurance information in an emergency.

Black claims that OwnYourInfo is the only personal-information-management system that doesn’t sell its customers’ information to third parties. OwnYourInfo’s database meets e-commerce encryption standards, and information that’s uploaded is scattered across the database. This means that if a security breach takes place, it’s unlikely that a hacker could piece together a customer’s entire file, Black says.

He also tells Consumers Digest that if a customer chooses to delete his/her account, the customer’s information is purged from the database and deleted permanently.

For some consumers, storing information on a personal-information-management system might be a convenient way to keep digital information organized. Just remember: It doesn’t mean that your information isn’t still floating around on the Internet.

– K. Fanuko