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MortgagePoint » Your Trusted Source for Mortgage Banking and Servicing News 40 December 2023 F E A T U R E share data in real-time with confidence in who they are sharing it with and exactly what is being shared. For the mortgage industry, this can mean not needing to strain your eyes over the fine print of a 4506T or an appraisal while still getting all the information need- ed to make an informed decision. For a consumer, this means not having to share more information than needed. Take a corporate tax return submitted as part of a personal loan qualification, for example. The return may include informa- tion about business partners not tied to the deal at hand, or a divorce decree that exposes the ex-spouse's information. All currently required documents for the loan origination process may contain unnecessary data points. Back in 2018, as part of a privacy blockchain article, I wrote about zero-knowledge proofs, a method by which information being requested can link back to a verifying person or insti- tution without conveying any additional information except that about which they are being asked. One of the examples I gave then was of a car rental agency need- ing to verify if you were over the age limit. They don't need to know your exact age, your birthday, etc.—just a yes/no response from a trusted agency. This is the future we should expect. Privacy and Transparency M y data is my data, not our data— and definitely not your data. We say this out loud, we may even believe it at times, but in our heart of hearts, we know that privacy is but an illusion. Data brokers have been selling our most private thoughts, our late-night Google searches, and our locations for years. We are a will- ing/unwilling open e-book. But government agencies are stepping up to put an end to this—or at least to provide guard rails. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission sued Kochava over selling sensitive location data. The CFPB wants to hold data brokers more ac- countable. Even the turbulent economic environment of 2022 did not take away from privacy spending by institutions. The average spending was $2.7 million, up significantly from $1.2 million just three years ago. Data management—the entire spec- trum of data scientists, data analysts, data reporters, data handlers—is a continuous- ly growing area. Data mesh—which is the concept of decentralizing data, so we have specific data owners for specific data sets, removing silos and constraints—allows for data to be seen as a business product, thereby controlled through business-level access yet structured enough for easy self-service. All of these are moves to not only protect our data but also provide more transparency on what is known about us and by whom. I believe this uptick in vulnerability assessments, security controls, and data management will continue and only get stronger. Expect nimble, narrow-AI pow- ered solutions. The Thinking Machine B etween sociopolitical unrest, economic turmoil, COVID-19 variants, and deep- fakes, who knows what 2024 will unravel for us? The one constant, like time, is the digital bits that power our world—always a zero or a one—relentlessly blinking away, connecting us, disconnecting us, but always ticking on. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not neces- sarily reflect or represent the views, policy, or position of Planet Home Lending, LLC. My data is my data, not our data—and definitely not your data. We say this out loud, we may even believe it at times, but in our heart of hearts, we know that privacy is but an illusion." —Aneeza Haleem, VP of Technology. Planet Home Lending