Disclosed herein are systems and methods for setting, accessing, and modifying user privacy settings using a distributed ledger. In an aspect, a system can search previously stored software contracts to locate an up-to-date version of a software contract associated with a user based on a request for access to user data for the particular user. Then, the system determines that the user data is permitted to be shared. The system transmits, to a data virtualization platform, instructions to extract encrypted user data from a data platform. The system can then make available, to a data verification system, a private encryption key and details associated with the software contract to verify that the private encryption key and the user data match. Then the system transmits, to the data virtualization platform, the private encryption key so that the data virtualization platform can decrypt the encrypted user data.