Why We Exist

River Beacon Consulting was founded by technologists who spent their careers inside the systems that collect and sell personal data. We saw how the data economy really works, and how little control people have within it. In our work, we handled datasets that held the real and intimate details of people's lives. Prescriptions, divorces and residence history sat in plain view for anyone with access. It was all legal, and it was all exposing. We watched organizations gather all kinds of data about their customers, but those customers had no way to opt out or take it back. Even organizations acting in good faith got breached, and there was no recourse for the users.

This reality of the modern data landscape causes many people to feel exposed and raises questions about their own data. Who is collecting it? What are they doing with it? Who is really in control? Clients come to us with all kinds of issues that stem from this widespread data collection. They are bothered by ads appearing for things that were discussed in private but never searched for. They are exhausted by spam calls from strangers who address them by name, or mail that arrives with details about the household that were never publicly shared. Each of these annoyances generates the same feeling: "I wish they didn't have my data."

Other clients come with stories, not of privacy violations, but of lack of control. These incidents include getting locked out of their own accounts by a cloud provider without warning. It's a feeling of violation. They had handed over their data willingly, yet another party controlled every part of it, including their very access. No one should have to feel that loss of control.

Many are understandably frustrated by these situations, and they decide to take back control themselves. Unfortunately, the digital landscape is often very complicated, and the layperson sometimes makes painful mistakes. Our clients have sought help after nearly locking themselves out of their own encrypted vaults, losing the only copy of an important recovery key, or dropping a phone in the lake and realizing the backup was never really in place. The stakes are high. Our digital lives hold what matters to us, and the stress of a poorly managed one can be enormous.

There is one more layer to all of this, and it is perhaps the most meaningful one. While security and privacy provide the foundation for someone to get their digital life in order, a bigger question remains. What happens to loved ones when a person is gone? Accounts, journals, important notes, photographs and personal projects live behind passwords that are too often held by just one person. If that person is incapacitated or no longer in the picture, families can be locked out of what matters most at the worst possible moment. We believe no one should ever face that.

Ultimately, River Beacon exists to give people ownership over the past, present and future of their digital lives.