There are a lot of quite serious and important security and privacy concerns surrounding our current notion of the concept of  cloud computing – which is generally understood to be computing infrastructure and services offered to domestic and business users through data centres that are physically located and based somewhere outside of our homes or offices.

One person who has been talking a lot about these issues of late – and who also hosted a high-profile talk on this vitally important matter at Mobile World Congress this week – is CEO and Founder of Private Planet, Dr Janko Mrsic-Flagel, whose company has been developing some very elegant solutions for managing your ‘digital self’ and your digital lifestyle in the cloud.

“Cloud computing is basically about making the systems inside enterprises or homes thinner,” explains Mrsic-Flagel. “However, imagine that every person had their own personal cloud computer. What would that do for that individual?”

One thing it would mean is that all of your various devices – your mobiles, your tablet, your netbook, your desktop, your TV and so on – could be connected through that cloud computer. “All your devices can synchronize through your personal cloud computer,” he says. “All your devices can know about each other.”

The second aspect is that you could have an unlimited amount of virtual personal storage which all of your devices would have access to. But what of the many concerns with security and privacy in the on-going debate about the future and importance of cloud computing ?

“Well both are paramount,” explains Dr. Mrsic-Flagel. “One of the great differences between us and the likes of Amazon and Google is that in our model you actually OWN your own cloud computer. This is a big difference. The telecom operator will host it for you. You will be the telecom operator’s customer, but you will own that computer. The privacy issue goes away, because you own the equipment that holds your data and it is not shared with any others. Unless you want it to be.”

So this is a storage device that is basically sitting in a data centre that is owned and managed by you. But why has this seemingly-obvious idea only come about now? Why are we not seeing this type of model from the likes of Google?

“Well it is not really in their interests,” the Private Planet founder tells UK Technology LIVE. “Their revenue is from mining your data and advertising based on very-directed ads for each individual.”

You can see more on how to get your own Private Planet at