Noteworthy Information

Business & Government Advanced read

Datenherrschaft – an Ethically Justified Solution to the Problem of Ownership of Patient Information

A PhD thesis on (health) data ownership: It can be stated that digital information is irremovable part of modern healthcare. However, the legal ownership of patient information lacks a coherent and justified basis. The whole issue itself is actually bypassed by controlling patient information with different laws and regulations how patient information can be used and by whom. Nonetheless, the issue itself – who owns the patient information – is commonly missed or bypassed.

Individuals Simple read

The metaverse is coming for your biometric and health data

Meta, Apple and Microsoft want to collect your biometric and health data. We need to change the way we deal with data before it's too late.

Individuals Advanced read

Personal Data Gentrification (Paper, 9p)

Individuals have undergone a process of Personal Data Gentrification, as data ownership has shifted from individuals to service providers and data consumers, as if the data is worth nothing to the individuals; these new owners then harness the data to obtain large profits. In this paper, we propose Personal Data Enfranchisement as a middle ground, empowering individuals to control the sharing of their personal information to shift the business flows of personal information. Based on these insights, we propose a model to gradually and incrementally make a shift from our current situation towards one of Personal Data Enfranchisement.

Business & Government Advanced read

The argument against property rights in data (Report, 12p)

In this policy brief we review the EU policy debate on access and use of data in view of the upcoming Data Act. We provide arguments against the introduction of new property rights–including the sui generis database right–in favor of strengthening data access rights.

Developers Intermediate read

Theorising Personal Data Markets in the Age of Communicative Capitalism

In this article, we focus on the increasingly popular market-libertarian critique that proposes individual control, ownership, and ability to commodify one’s personal data as an answer to corporate data extraction, derivation and exploitation schemes. We critique the claims that personal data markets counterbalance corporate digital capitalism on two grounds. First, these markets do not work economically and therefore are unable to address the exploitative aspect of surveillance capitalism. Second, the notion of personal data markets functions ideologically because it reduces the critique of surveillance capitalism to the exploitation of consumers and conceals the real objective of data capitalists such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple to not (just) exploit audiences but to create worlds that create audiences.

Individuals Simple read

It’s time for individuals — not doctors or companies — to own their health data

Health data should be like a mountain stream, flowing in a single direction with a clear purpose: improving health and medical outcomes. Instead, it’s a complex puzzle that only data scientists and physicians can meaningfully put together and use.

Individuals Advanced read

Patient data ownership: Who owns your health?

This article answers two questions from the perspective of United Kingdom law and policy: (i) is health information property? and (ii) should it be? We argue that special features of health information make it unsuitable for conferral of property rights without an extensive system of data-specific rules, like those that govern intellectual property.

Individuals Intermediate read

Own Your Health Data

As the future of our healthcare system moves towards electronic healthcare records, we need patient data ownership rights to protect patient care.

Individuals Simple read

Turn it around – could businesses sell data to consumers?

Thousands of companies buy and sell consumer data with other companies. Most recently, hundreds of business plans have been prepared, which essentially revolve around the idea of consumers selling their own data to monetize it. Probably neither of these models is a sustainable business. But what about consumers starting to pursue data from companies and public sources? Could it turn the perspective around?

Individuals Intermediate read

Ownership of User-Held Data: Why Property Law is the Right Approach

In this paper, we show that in some narrow instances the ownership of personal data is actually and legally possible: new "user-held data" technologies are emerging and help individuals have their personal data in their "personal data clouds"; Individuals can collect their data from various sources (such as online accounts, wearable devices, IoT, and manually input data). We show that such ownership of user-held data is not different from other types of assets such as money in your bank account, intermediate securities, receivables, floating charge, and your crypto.

Business & Government Advanced read

Data Rentiership and the Policy Implications

Unlike innovation that delivers new products, services, and markets, innovation as rentiership is defined by the extraction and capture of value through different modes of ownership and control over resources and assets. This shift towards rentiership is evident in the transformation of personal digital data into a private asset. In light of this assetization, it is necessary to unpack how innovation itself might be a problem, rather than a solution to a range of global challenges.

[Intermediate] Google Podcasts: How the Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives (1:13 hours)

Ownership is simple, right? Something is either yours or it isn’t. Case closed. But who owns the space behind your airplane seat, the results of the DNA you took online, the Netflix password you got from your cousin’s roommate? The jury's still out, according to law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman. That’s because ownership isn’t binary or static: it’s a storytelling exercise, and we rely on just six stories to claim everything we own. In this revelatory conversation, Michael and James explain how those stories work, how you can use them to your advantage, and why they might be key to dismantling income inequality and arresting climate change.

[Advanced] Ownership of User-Held Data: Why Property Law Is the Right Approach

Without any doubt, there are so many aspects and different dimensions to Data Ownership. To clarify some of the points, we wrote a paper on personal data ownership. Hopefully, it contributes to the debate.

[Intermediate] Ownership vs Control

We discussed the importance of having control over our data. Others, meanwhile, have championed the competing model of data ownership. Here, we outline why control, not ownership, provides the surest path towards data empowerment.

Logged out: Ownership, exclusion and public value in the digital data and information commons

Abstract: In recent years, critical scholarship has drawn attention to increasing power differentials between corporations that use data and people whose data is used. A growing number of scholars see digital data and information commons as a way to counteract this asymmetry. In this paper I raise two concerns with this argument.

Getting Value with User-Held Data

User-centric data model opens new opportunities with data, and opens the gate for creativity and innovation in this space.

Andrew Yang proposes that your digital data be considered personal property

Data generated by each individual needs to be owned by them, with certain rights conveyed that will allow them to know how it’s used and protect it.

vs.

Making your digital self personal property makes as much sense as making your physical self personal property. That road does NOT end well.

Local-first software (PDF)

In this article Ink & Switch propose “local-first software”: a set of principles for software that enables both collaboration and ownership for users. Local-first ideals include the ability to work offline and collaborate across multiple devices, while also improving the security, privacy, long-term preservation, and user control of data.

Personal Data Ownership: Economic Considerations

With this article Paul Jurcys continues to dive deeper into personal data ‘ownership’ topic.

  • What data is most valuable to you?
  • What segments of your data would you prefer to keep anonymous?
  • What segments of your personal data would you be willing to share with third parties?

Personal Data Ownership

Legal, Economic, and Political Reasons For Individuals to Have Ownership Rights over Their Personal Data Triggered responses from different views ('baisc human rights' or 'property rights') in Slack.

You Really Don’t Want to Sell Your Data

Without fundamental legal rights underpinning the relationship between those who control data and those subject to it, data ownership will erode the control of those who need it most.

AI Needs Your Data—and You Should Get Paid for It

A new approach to training artificial intelligence algorithms involves paying people to submit medical data, and storing it in a blockchain-protected system.

Do we really want to “sell” ourselves?

Who owns your data? It’s a popular question of late in the identity community, particularly in the wake of Cambridge Analytica, numerous high-profile Equifax-style data breaches, and the GDPR coming into full force and effect.

Why the Global South should nationalise its data

Big Tech corporations are extracting data from users across the world without paying for it. It is time to change that.

Commerce in Data and the Dynamically Limited Alienability Rule

Commerce in some data is, and should be, limited by the law because some data embody values and interests (in particular, human dignity) that may be detrimentally affected by trade. In this article, drawing on the Roman law principles regarding res extra commercium, we investigate the example of personal data as regulated under the EU Charter and the GDPR. We observe that transactions in personal data are not forbidden but subject to what we call a dynamically limited alienability rule. This rule is based on two dynamic variables: the nature of data and the legal basis for commercially trading such data (at primary or secondary level).

ConsumerReports rejects Data Ownership

“Privacy is an inalienable human right that cannot be traded away, even if a monetary value of a consumer’s data could be assessed.” - via @hackylawyER

Data Ownership in the US Elections

Andrew Yang (2020 US Presidential Candidate from the Democrats): Our data is ours - or it should be. At this point our data is more valuable than oil. If anyone benefits from our data it should be us. I would make data a property right that each of us shares.

Bottom-Up Data Trusts: Disturbing the ‘One Size Fits All’ Approach to Data Governance

Delacroix and Lawrence emphasize the limits inherent in an ownership approach to data: at most, data ownership confers the kind of access rights that are similar to water rights.

Can you own your data?

Arguments about data ownership... ”you can’t own legally, but ownership is also a social construct... more rights you have closer to ownership you feel”


Questions Asked

Individuals Intermediate read

Why is it so hard to get our data back?

Many companies ask you to go through a complicated process. Is there any way to set a limit on how much additional info can be required?

A research paper on How do app vendors respond to subject access requests might answer the question.

Is selling personal data like smoking?

A great discussion triggered by this statement: Like smoking, selling personal data generated by one should be allowed if the individual so wants and it should be taxed to high heaven to discourage people from doing so.

Data Ownership

What do you think, are the economic consequences for not having a right to own data?


Tools
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