The founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has launched a startup Inrupt, which allows large organisations and governments to build applications which put users in control of their personal data.

The company’s concept is to store personal information separately, and to share only what is necessary with the services accessing them. These data collections, known as Personal Online Data Stores (Pods), can be accessed using the company’s open-source data storage technology called Solid. For example, fitness data could be stored in a Pod and shared with a doctor when their app requests access.

Tim Berners-Lee co-founded the company with Chief Executive John Bruce three years ago, but this month has made its Enterprise Solid Server – the infrastructure that runs the service – available to any interested customer. Previously, Inrupt had been testing its service with the BBC, NatWest Bank and the National Health Service in the UK. Bruce stated “Fast forward to today, and we’re releasing the first significant technology as the fruits of our labor, which is an enterprise version of Solid to be deployed at scale by large organizations”.

Inrupt’s launch comes as a well-needed solution as privacy becomes a bigger concern in the tech industry. Concerns over data handling have been highlighted by Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica affair, TikTok’s alleged spying, and investigations into Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.

If successful, Inrupt could mark a turning point for applications’ access to and the handling of personal data, by having it centrally stored rather than collected by each and every application. Perhaps prompting a move away from apps and services that harvest personal data – in order to then serve personalised ads – and giving the user back overall control.