A unique digital identification infrastructure based on myGaru technology has been launched nationwide in Ukraine. All key telecom players in the country have simultaneously joined the project: Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, lifecell, and Ukrtelecom.
A unique digital identification infrastructure based on myGaru technology has been launched nationwide in Ukraine. All key telecom players in the country have simultaneously joined the project: Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, lifecell, and Ukrtelecom.
dev.ua learned about this from the company’s official release. Ukraine actually became the first country in the world to deploy a cross-telecom identifier of such a scale.
We explain how the technology works, why it is a blow to foreign intelligence, and how it will change the Ukrainian digital market.
The world is on the verge of a massive internet marketing crisis: familiar third-party cookies (the cookies that websites use to track us) and device identifiers are becoming increasingly unreliable due to Apple and Google’s privacy policies.
In addition to purely business problems, this creates direct threats to national security.
«Third parties, including foreign intelligence services, can use cookies to track users' online activity. The introduction of myGaru technology is a step towards an innovative advertising environment that respects privacy and does not pose risks to national security,» explains Andriy Zheleznyak, Director of Big Data at Kyivstar.
In addition, until now, the Ukrainian advertising market has been isolated: data from retailers, media, and operators existed separately, and local signals often came under the control of global tech giants.
Unlike browser trackers, myGaru ID works at the level of the telecom network itself.
When a user visits a site or app, the mobile operator recognizes them within their network.
However, the operator does NOT share your phone number, name, or other personal data.
Instead, the system automatically generates a temporary encrypted code (token) for a specific session.
This allows advertisers to understand the interests of the audience (for example, to show gadget ads to those who are interested in them), but completely eliminates user deanonymization. Complete privacy by default (privacy-by-design).
The main feature of the integration is the creation of so-called digital sovereignty (sovereign data). Now Ukrainian brands and agencies will be able to configure ultra-precise advertising within global platforms (Google, Meta, TikTok), using accurate telecom data from Ukrainian operators.
At the same time, the personal data of Ukrainians will not physically cross the border of Ukraine, remaining under the protection of the national infrastructure. This allows preserving the financial value of the data within the local economy.
myGaru is a British deep-tech company with Ukrainian roots, founded in 2019. Its founder and CEO is Vitaliy Morozenko.
In this project, the company acts as a completely independent technological arbitrator (data intermediary). It does not own the data itself and does not belong to any of the operators, which is fully compliant with the European Data Governance Act.
«Identity is the foundation of any functional data economy. Cross-telecom ID establishes a single identification standard on a national scale, creating structural conditions for a sovereign and accountable data ecosystem,» Vitaliy Morozenko comments on the launch.
Ukrainian media holdings, e-commerce platforms, and advertising agencies have already begun to connect to the new platform, creating a single data marketplace protected from external interference.
Але ж Київстар російський тож дані йдуть " додому ".