Today our personal privacy is under attack by countless social media platform advertising tools and even from veiled government surveillance programs.

Oxford Dictionary defines Privacy as, “a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people and/or the state of being free from public attention.” But recent technical innovations have blurred the lines of “not observed or disturbed” and “free from public attention”.

We have become inseparable from our smartphones so our locations are constantly being tracked. Social media platforms know more about us than we should be comfortable with. Companies like Google or Facebook don’t technically sell your data, but they do make it available to advertisers that use their ad-buying tools.

Even our sensitive information is floating around, being exchanged for numerous unauthorized purposes and exposed to the possibility of being hacked, for example, the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal.

Meanwhile data continues to play a growing and essential role in the exhibition industry economy. Technology platforms have increased the ability to collect unflawed data from multiple platforms and provide us with the ability to leverage that data to the betterment of the event’s success. Since this digital transition, the average attendee hasn’t really been bothered by how much of their data is constantly being collected.

Now as privacy rights get more and more abused, the exhibition industry should be concerned that their “golden egg” databases may get eroded from attendees wanting to be “forgotten”. Think GDPR.

Here’s where blockchain and smart contracts may be our saving grace. Entrepreneurial platforms are being built to address the concerns of our dwindling right to privacy in the digital world.

For example, a blockchain-based token BAT, has been created on Ethereum to fix the broken state of the current digital advertising space in which users are unknowingly tracked, publishers are having trouble monetizing content, and advertisers are constant victims to fraud.

Let’s extrapolate this out to our industry. Adding value to the attendee experience and monetizing content at the event using a blockchain-based token, may help change our current exhibition industry’s business model and take us into the future.

If you’re interested in “What Lies Ahead”, come to the #UFIStPetersburg Congress on 31 October – 3 November and hear my fellow panelists Chet Burchett, Simon Foster & Rachel Wimberly examine our ideas for the future of our industry.