Industry & Business

Creating game-changing technology, which will give consumers control over the personal data stored by online companies, is the goal of Waterford startup Sedicii.

The multi-award winning company is already trialling software which allows the identity of online shoppers to be authenticated without the need for a password to be exchanged and which thus reduces the amount of information being given away by consumers during a purchase.
The next step for Sedicii is the creation of a platform which will allow consumers to find out what pieces of their financial and personal information are being stored by online retailers.

“This will mean that users will be able to curate and manage information and ask to get it deleted or updated,” says Sedicii founder and managing director, Rob Leslie, who expects to start trialling this new technology in early 2016.
The development of this identity verification and management software has been prompted by EU plans to introduce new privacy laws next year which will give consumers the right to find out what data is being held and the right to have it deleted.

Given that the EU proposed to enforce the new laws by imposing fines of up to 5% of global annual turnover on companies which fail to comply, Sedicii foresees the opening up of a vast market.
Mr Leslie is now raising €5m from UK investors in order to develop the company over the next 18 months. Up until this point Sedicii was funded by Mr Leslie who secured two Innovation vouchers from Enterprise Ireland as well as €50,000 in H2020 funding from the European Commission.
The company expects to generate sales of €1m to €2m over the next year, increasing this to €50m in 2017 and €10 m in 2018.