Bitmark

Your phone and wearable devices track your steps, calories, sleep cycles, and more. Tracking this data helps you improve your personal wellbeing, but this data is also an invaluable resource for advancing public health.

Bitmark makes it easy, fun, and safe to donate your health data to health researchers. The decentralized Bitmark mobile app gives you secure, direct control over your personal data and digital assets by allowing you to easily register, track, and donate your personal data to the studies that matter most to you.

Research fellows at Berkeley’s School of Public Health are using Bitmark to power a new generation of public health studies. These studies crowdsource personal data from individual donors to get exactly the kind of data they need. Donors have complete control over whom they share their data with and when. By interacting digitally, researchers are able to gain data that has been previously too sensitive or too inaccessible to use.

This partnership marks a significant step toward technology innovation for health research, affording transparent access to data, providing a wide and diverse population for crowdsourcing, and automating donor consent.

FOR PARTICIPANTS
Interested participants can browse various studies that they want to participate in. Once a user selects a study, they can securely and anonymously donate their data over an encrypted data transfer network. The Bitmark blockchain establishes an authenticated, permanent record of data donation that ensures data accountability and donor consent while protecting sensitive donor information.

FOR RESEARCHERS
Using the Bitmark system, researchers can broadcast Requests for Data (RFDs) which define the frequency and types of data required for their studies. They can then collect data over the encrypted data transfer network and crowdsource for the particular data that is most imperative to their study.

The Bitmark system does three things:
- Structures and indexes personal data and converts it to digital property using the Bitmark blockchain
- Protects your data ownership rights by securing data provenance with a “bitmark”
- Provides a safe mechanism to store and transfer personal data

By using Bitmark you will be able to:
- Browse & select the health studies that interest you
- Link your iOS health app on your phone to the studies that you choose
- Donate your data, securely, safely, and with your full consent
- Track where your data goes and continue donating!