We store our personal data in data pods and access them through some kind of API. But the more I think about it a data pod is more like a digital soul, connected to the digital environment called the internet. It’s personal, it consists of everything you do online, it represents you, it’s a mirror that shows who you are online. This is actually quite a scary thought, but think about it, most of that information is already stored somewhere on a company server without any insight. Just recently we got the opportunity to access some of the data — at least if you are an European — through the GDPR. But you only have guaranteed access to the most basic raw data, most of the value is still locked away and inaccessible as a company secret. Having a digital soul also offers a lot of improvements for currently existing services. I for example never got really warm with personal assistants, I own an Amazon Eco and use Alexa to set alarms and play music. Siri, Google Home and Cortana all offer some kind of functionality but they are neither smart nor personal. Future personal assistants could read and write to your digital soul or even reply to conversations just based upon the data and insights they could extract. They could provide real help and assistance to find stuff and make appointments and understand what you are talking about. Because they could also access the calendars of you friends (if they share it with you) they could talk to other personal assistants and schedule activities. If you write to friend it could remind you to ask them about their new job because the assistant monitored his feed and updated you with the most relevant data. The possibilities are endless, the question that remains is do we want a future like that and how can we secure and protect our digital soul.