Sequin - What if Personal Data Became a Currency? A Design Project Where Speculative Design and Data Visualization Meet

We live in an era defined by the pervasive "datafication" of existence, a process in which every human action is measured and translated into value, so much so that data has been defined as the oil of the 21st century. From heartbeats monitored by wearable devices to mundane interactions on social media, our lives produce an uninterrupted trail of information. However, the current digital economy is founded on a profound power asymmetry: while users constantly generate value through their involuntary digital traces, it is the large technological platforms that capitalize on them. Despite growing regulatory attention, the contemporary user finds themselves trapped in a behavioral paradox. While fearing for their privacy, the user constantly yields sovereignty over their data in exchange for free services, convenience, and social connection, becoming the victim of an uncertainty that makes it difficult to perceive the real value of what is being lost. The initial phase of Desk Research, involving the analysis of a heterogeneous corpus of news and speculative design case studies, confirmed the critical nature of this scenario. The investigation highlighted how the boundaries between public and private, as well as between state surveillance and corporate monitoring, are becoming increasingly blurred: roles and responsibilities overlap, progressively eroding the individual's data sovereignty and leaving them without effective control tools. Thus, what emerges is a user who, despite being the primary generator of the data, is deprived of control and ownership. This structural evidence finds confirmation in the User Research, where one-to-one interviews highlighted a widespread feeling of resignation. While latent privacy concerns persist, the prevailing sentiment is that surrendering data is the inevitable cost of digital participation. In response to the insights that emerged from the research, the project adopts Speculative Design to shift attention from designing applications to designing implications, not to provide answers, but to spark debate and invite questions. By constructing plausible near-future scenarios, the project invites the user to suspend disbelief to explore the ethical and social implications regarding the value of personal data. The thesis therefore hypothesizes a scenario set in 2030, a near future in which the battle for privacy has been definitively abandoned in favor of a pragmatic and total monetization of identity. The design outcome is Sequin, an app where users reclaim the value of their personal data collected from other apps by selling it in a peer-to-peer ecosystem. Leveraging data visualization to turn raw metrics into accessible insights, the app is a hybrid between a marketplace and a social network: users upload data listings and earn currency from every sale. At the same time, they can browse and purchase data of interest within a social-media-like interface, designed to keep them constantly hooked. Acting as a distorting mirror of current reality, the project critiques the blurring of boundaries, the surveillance capitalism model, and the personal value of data by showing a world where data sovereignty can be regained only to be immediately monetized. Through this narrative, the thesis explores the paradox of a society in which identity fuses indissolubly with economic value, inviting critical reflection on the manipulative nature of the digital interfaces that govern our lives and on the price of privacy.