My data brings all the boys to the yard.

One of the most astounding developments in recent years, and mind you there has been no shortage of “astounding” developments, has been the elevation of the discourse around personal data in the wake of Cambridge Analytica. If it so happens you have been living in a cave for the past year, a primer before you carry on. Personal data in the news is actually not a recent development, sadly due to repeated breaches and theft of personal data caused by companies being either too lazy or too cheap to properly safeguard consumer data. What makes this year so different is the tone of the conversation, and the notion of what data is and how we, as its producers, have been removed from any decision making regarding its use.

Jaron Lanier makes a number of solid points on the ridiculousness of the current state of the connected digital landscape, but how did we get here? How did things get to this point so rapidly? I’ll point to two factors. The first is an abject misunderstanding of how the digital tools we engage with everyday function. Of the two, this one is the most forgivable. Clark’s third law notwithstanding, we as humans can’t be expected to understand the tedious details of every process on Earth. We have finite cognitive resources and disparate personal interests that drive us as individuals. Case in point: I can comfortably traverse two levels deep into a conversation on plant husbandry before my knowledge gaps become woefully apparent. And that’s fine, as plant husbandry is not a topic that particularly interests me (although I can appreciate the need for study in that area, as in many others). The same goes for most utilities – we consume but aren’t necessarily expected to understand every process along the chain of delivery (and, again, that’s fine). We place our trust in others to know these things.

The second factor, which drives much of our current woes, is the role of legislators and regulatory functions charged with establishing the rules for digital or digitally-enabled organizations. These functions, by many accounts, remain populated by individuals possessing the same lack of understanding as the rest of us, with the notable distinction that they have a responsibility to be knowledgeable (or passingly so) on the topics they are intended to regulate. Additionally, the nausea-inducing fawning of politicians concerning tech companies (or all profitable companies it seems) often results in these companies being given a pass (even in the current climate). Facebook and Google have been hammered this year, with lots of public hearings and private conversations with Congress, but what has actually happened as a result (beyond the dispatching of even more lobbyists)?

We are the producers of an ever-increasing trove of data, both as individuals and in aggregate, and that data is a veritable gold-mine for these companies (yet one could argue that our personal data is, in fact, a fictitious commodityas it is the backbone of our new, digitally-enabled identity). In the more discrete parlance, data is our digital effluence – the inevitable byproduct of a new lifeway. This prompts a larger question in the context of such unsavory metaphors: who owns our waste? In the current model, companies are generating large returns collecting and processing our data, with none of that tangible value returning to the producer. This is, at the least, an inequitable value exchange, and, at worst, unadulterated thievery.
The common, and controversial, argument from the data purveyors is that free access to the platform is the trade-off for data harvesting and commodification. Even if that logic were to hold, it would still require more transparency into how our data is being used than is currently provided. At the very least, we must be provided more explicit opportunities to manage the type of personal data we are allowing companies to harvest, and even more so around the type of data we are allowing them to bundle and sell. GDPR rules in Europe the CCPA in CA go a long way towards reigning in the lazy approach to security of personal data most companies have taken as they’ve transitioned into digital businesses, which is a good thing, but does nothing to address the notion of data ownership.

Lanier takes a huge step further by attempting to define new economies built around a proprietary ownership model of our own data. In an oversimplification, this is a royalty model where our data generates a return for each use, and we maintain explicit control of where, when, and how it is captured and utilized.  Although lots of upsides to this, Lanier is also quick to explore the downside, where this market creates a new data hierarchy – one where socio-economic status drives definitions of value and leaves vulnerable populations tilting in the digital wind. Decentralizing of data through blockchain is another common thread – where our data is no longer held behind corporate firewalls where it can be picked over without prying eyeballs. This, of course, presumes that social media platforms are the only source of our data woes, a fact Facebook themselves called out in one of many defensive postures this year.
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So, where do we go from here? We are most certainly in uncharted waters, and although governments, companies, and individuals are busy proposing new regulatory constructs or approaches to securing and managing our data, Pandora’s box has already been opened. At its simplest, we must be presented with clear definitions of how our data is being collected and used, as well as the tools necessary to manage across the reach of our digital presence. Additionally, we must demand accountability from the services we employ, even it means pulling the plug on companies that flippantly trade in our data. I for one believe in the development of a digital passport – a unique, individualized digital token reflecting both my digital identity and my rules for data collection and redistribution – could help. Not only would this simplify the creation of new digital credentials, it would also serve as a digital record to determine which companies are violating my terms of service (rather than the other way ‘round) and could be used as part of a new platform for redistribution of data wealth back to the producers who create it. One can dream.