**Abstract**

Recent increases in security breaches and digital surveillance highlight the need for improved privacy and security, particularly over users' personal data. Advances in cybersecurity and new legislation promise to improve data protection. Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies provide novel opportunities for protecting user data through decentralized identity and other privacy mechanisms. These systems can allow users greater sovereignty through tools that enable them to own and control their own data. Artificial intelligence provides further possibilities for enhancing system and user security, enriching data sets, and supporting improved analytical models.

**Keywords:** personally-identifiable data (PII), personal-data privacy, decentralized identity (DID), self-sovereign identity, cybersecurity, GDPR, zero-knowledge proofs
