How much is a digital soul worth? Apparently just over P21,000

If we decide to sell our "digital souls" - the sum of all our personal data online - how much could we expect to earn?

Judging from a Dutch student's recent auction of his own data soul, not much more than the equivalent of P21,000.

That's what Shawn Buckles got when he auctioned his personal data for €350 (£288 or P21,418.60) last week, a report on Wired.com said.

But Buckles has a reason for selling his (data) soul - to illustrate how everyone is monitored and their privacy is traded.

"Facebook isn’t free. You pay with your identity," he said on his website.

He added he agrees to be monitored when using services by Google, Facebook and Apple, which he said "specialize in collecting data on (consumer)behavior, location and interests -and use my (online) conversations and agenda to map out my networks."

"Though the real problem lies with governments misusing this big data," he added.

In his website, he said his data soul would include:

• personal profile
• location track records
• train track records
• personal calendar
• email and online conversations
• thoughts, consumer preferences, and browsing history

Wired.com said The Next Web won the bidding, and "will use his data to illustrate the issue of privacy at TNW's forthcoming conference."

"The money will be donated to a Dutch digital rights organisation called Bits for Freedom," it added.

Meanwhile, Buckles told Wired.co.uk that "this is just the start."

"I hope my auction helps people understand that the issue is about us, the people. I hope it helps to illustrate what data is being collected and how private this data is. I reckon our digital data says more about us than our living rooms. A question to you: do you have curtains?" he said.

Ethical questions

A separate report on Mashable said Buckle's auction raises important ethical questions, including "at what point do digital records of human behavior stop being personal."

"Obviously the content of Buckle's inbox is personal but is a calculation of the average number of emails per day per country personal? Is GPS data averaged across millions of people personal?" it said.  — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News