Data rights > data ownership?
That’s the position taken by Privacy International in its response to the recent editorial by artist wil.i.am in The Economist which called for tech giants to pay individuals for their data:
- Data rights offer a system of control and protection that is much more comprehensive than ownership, and these rights continue to exist even after you share your data with others. They apply to data that others collect about you with or without your knowledge and they also apply to the insights and conclusions that they make about you.
- Existing data protection laws, like the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) put a strong data rights system in place. Now is the time to focus efforts on making it easy to use and widely adopted.
- As powerful as data rights are, they are not a silver bullet. Market dominance and other distortions are a growing concern which should be addressed as well.