Privacy on a new level

Thanks to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), as well as other upcoming legislative adjustments and regulations, data protection has a much higher priority than it did just a few years ago. However, it is still a great challenge for all parties involved to deal with the “tool” GDPR. Certainly, customers like you now have the option of being comprehensively informed about the use and utilization of their own data. However, it is often not clear to whom one should make this request, what the expected answer should contain and if one does manage to overcome the first hurdles, the waiting time until the information is often considerable.

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Problem solved?

It takes a lot of faith to accept the GDPR, extensions and federal laws as the solution to all the challenges that come with data protection. As severe as the penalties are for non-compliance, it does not prevent the offense. This means that you, as a customer, must continue to rely on the fact that companies with which you enter into exchanges always adhere to the legal requirements in all points and in all processes. To ensure that for you, you would have to control everything.

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Our approach to a solution

At wunderbon, we strongly believe that the GDPR and its potential amendments and successors are only a temporary tool until there is widespread protection of your data through encrypted, secure Intermediary Customer Data Platforms like ours (see chart).

We take on the role of an independent intermediary in the communication between the end customer and companies, ensuring that all parties involved comply with the requirements of the GDPR (and others) and that everyone remains in control of their data at all times. A bit like a digital ombudsman (definition ombudsman in Wikipedia). With wunderbon, you also have real-time visibility into how your data is being used, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. If you terminate access to your data for a partner, the partner is only left with the data that is required by law, e.g. for reasons of documentation of business processes. So you are always informed about it, and you can also export this overview at any time. Merchants who value their customers offer them their data services encrypted via wunderbon. Therefore, always look for the wunderbon logo at your dealer – that way you are on the safe side.

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Privacy Relay

It is with great pleasure that we have noted Apple’s developments in recent iOS releases. Not only do we see our fundamental orientation confirmed, but we also see Apple’s move as a clear signal for data protection as a fundamental right. Here’s what Apple says about in-app tracking, for example:

Your devices know a whole lot of your life. We believe you should have choices about how apps track your data and share it with other companies or data brokers to display ads. Starting with iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, apps must ask for your consent if they want to track you via apps and websites of other companies. You can change your settings for all apps or set apps to stop asking you.

Source: Apple.com (DE)

Thus, features such as the previously mentioned one(s) and the most recently launched Private Relay show the direction in which data protection and control over one’s own data is developing. For this not only to affect niches, but to become a widespread reality, we are dependent on you as a user, but also on merchants who pick up on the development early on, and who are linked to wunderbon and provide end-to-end encrypted data services.

How it works

With our Privacy Relay, we ensure that you remain completely anonymous to the retailer or the cashier at the point-of-sale (POS). The merchant does not receive any static characteristics due to our special procedure, with the use of both cryptographic elements such as encryption and digital signatures, and the basic structure of the identification of a user like you, so that you are a “new customer” every time you make a purchase. Regardless of all the factors that can be used for this. This is already the case today with the use of digital payment by smartphone or smartwatch (so-called tokenization).

As you can see from the diagram, wunderbon acts with the Privacy Relay acts as an intermediary and not only secures the communication through cryptographic procedures, but also ensures that you are able to does not leave any static features, and this despite the fact that not only a payment can be processed, but also an indefinite number of other services, such as digital cash receipts, or cashbacks, individual discounts and prices, and much more. Our used cryptogram (more about cryptograms on wikipedia) offers space for complex use cases. Let us surprise you with what else we have prepared for you.

Key Pooling

This is made possible, among other things, by a special implementation of encryption in which you, as our user, have a pool of key pairs that are shared with others in random rotation by our algorithm. Thus, from a merchant’s point of view, every user is also sometimes a completely different user. Sounds confusing? – perhaps the following chart will help us clear up the confusion a bit:

We carry with our protocol, which is also documented here, for a secure anonymous exchange between you and your dealer. If you’re interested in more details on security including more information on end-to-end encryption, key management and your wallet, you can find that information here, technical information and implementation help can be found in our wunderbon Developers Hub.

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Be part of the future now

If you want to benefit from this protection of your privacy, and you are not registered yet, register now to be part of Start (coming soon). If you are a merchant, want to give your customers this protection and control and want to benefit from the GDPR-as-a-Service yourself and join our network, contact us now!

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