Remember MyData 2016? Convergences, Tensions and Missing Topics
Two weeks ago I blogged Molly Schwartz’s closing remarks from the MyData 2017 conference. Now I will roll back one more year. Valerie Peugeot started the tradition of these high quality conference summaries on her closing speech of MyData 2016. These summary presentations wouldn’t be possible without the methodology that the researcher team from FING / MesInfos developed with Valerie.
It is fascinating to watch (or read) these two summary presentations side-by-side and reflect how the discussion in the MyData community is evolving and also in what parts it is not maturing yet.
I recommend to watch also the original presentation from the video. What follows is my intention to capture the 15 points from the presentation and it does include some of my own interpretation as well.
Beside giving this excellent closing remarks in last year’s conference Valerie Peugeot has been long time supporter and contributor to the human centered personal data movement in France and elsewhere. In 2017 MyData-conference Valerie Peugeot was co-hosting the Our Data -topic track which addressed some of the “missing topics” from 2016 and strengthened the discussion around societal aspects of personal data. Thank you Valerie Peugeot and thanks FING researchers!
Value for People
People have been formatted for 20 years to get excellent services without caring about their data. Paradoxically people often say that they want more privacy, but at the same time, they won’t use the privacy enhancing tools that are available. We definitely need to give something in exchange if we want users to migrate to services that offer them control over their data. We need the MyData services to be fun and useful, privacy and control alone are not enough to change people’s behaviour.
Design at Heart
Design and user experience are key success factors in building such MyData services that will become widely adopted and successful. When we talk about human centric personal data we have to make also human centric design.
No Technological Determinism
In many tech devoted conferences you hear (only) that technology is the solution. On regular basis some new technology tends to grab all the attention, all the money, all the funding, etc. It was Web 2.0, remember? It was biotechnologies, nano technologies, cloud computing, big data, internet platforms, and now it’s the blockchain, and then it will be something else next year.
Technology, during this conference, was in the right place and technical determinism did not dominate the discussions. In contrast, various workshops and sessions tried to dispel the fantasies around technology. People do recognise the importance of technology, but many speeches insisted on the fact that technology’s only part of the solution, and can also be part of the problem.
Data Portability
Let’s not be naive on data portability. The companies which have been fighting fiercely against the GDPR for years in Brussel’s corridors, spending millions in lobbying, they will fight again to get the lightest possible interpretation of the portability. The legal tools become really useful only if they meet a social movement, if they meet a cultural change. MyData community, the people who are here, we should all contribute to that social movement. As Rufus Pollock said: “It’s about politics. But politics, it’s not only regulation. It’s politics made by the people.”
Vertical Versus Integrated PIMS
Some people promote vertical approaches of Personal Information Management Services (PIMS), platforms dedicated to energy data, to health data, etc. Others are saying no, no, no. We want a general PIMS, we want one place where the person can stock and store their data and have all their different apps dedicated to health, energy and other areas of life.
From “Winner Takes All” to “Competition Takes All”
Nobody, during the three days, said it out loud that we have similar PIMS services that do more or less the same and of course, we can see them as competitors. There is two ways to look at this. Indeed they are in competition because they are looking for same clients and also competing for funding etc. On the other hand, if those actors work together, they make the market grow and there is more to share. If MyData values diverse digital markets, we should put at distance the “winner takes all” model that is rotting the digital economy. Healthy competition is compulsory if we want MyData to become mainstream. We have to move from a winner takes all to a competition takes all.
Public Sector Role — Give Away the Crown Jewels?
Many conference participants insisted on the motto, “Give the data back to the users” should apply as much to the public sector as to the private sector. Others fear that this will open the door for the private sector (and especially the existing strong players in the data economy) to capture all the value of the data. Back in 2006 Guardian published an article “Give Us Back our Crown Jewels”. They were talking about opening government public data for the wider use. The question is if we are now moving from “Give Us Back our Crown Jewels” to “Give Away the Crown Jewels”? Where does the value actually flow when data from the public sector becomes more accessible?
Elephants (GAFAs)
The role of the big players (GAFA = Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc. ) in the future of MyData was not properly discussed in the public space of the conference, only in some online comments. Apparently, the opinions and positions of the participants vary. Some express a clear hostility towards the ‘big elephants’ and focus on building an alternative model to what they offer. Others are more willing to cooperate with the big ones, and think that it the GAFAs can change from the inside. The first group think that cooperation would lead to an absorption of MyData initiative, like it has happened previously for example to OpenID. The second group think that GAFAs are too strong to fail and they should be involved to create the change, as they have big resources.
Data as Property vs. Fundamental Right
Many people insisted on the fact that data doesn’t fall under a regime of property, but is rooted in our rights. Rights for data protection within the broader framework of privacy protection within the general framework of human rights. On the other hand (maybe because we have been intoxicated with the stupid metaphor of data being oil) we tend to consider data also as a good that can therefore be owned, then be the property of someone. We are not clear cut about whether personal data should be approached from the perspective of rights or ownership, we are very ambiguous about this.
Zoom Back on the Economy
We focus on the privacy issues related to personal data and on the apparent contradiction between innovation and data protection, but we need to zoom back on the economy at large. We tend to think in silos: data protection on the one hand, competition law on the other hand, tax evasion on the third hand, etc. However all this is related.
There would not be such a strong data protection problem if we had not accepted to build our digital economy on two sided actors, one side being not directly monetized. Our economy has moved from an economy of acquisition (I buy my clothes, my food, my access to a newspaper) to the so-called attention economy. However, attention economy is not given forever, It is fragile and we can already see that. We need to think: how do we move out of the attention economy and how do the MyData actors contribute to this re-foundation of our digital economy?
Governance
Several people said during the three days that we should contribute to democracy. Democracy starts within the companies. Romain Liberge from MAIF explained how an old mutual interest company company is moving towards Self Data and André Golliez fro Swiss MIDATA.coop explained how they chose to be a cooperative, but what about the others? There was not much discussion around different possible governance models for the MyData related organisations and initiatives.
We should grab some lessons from what happened to the so-called sharing economy. Various companies working in the sharing economy are trying to move to more open governance models later on and they’re having a really hard time. If we do not build a democratic governance from scratch when we create companies we can’t do it afterwards. We should think from the beginning how we are going to share the value that the company’s creating with our customers, with our shareholders, with the workers.
Where is the Crowd?
We are overwhelmingly me centered and focus too much on the isolated individual. We use terms like the internet of me, the person as the platform, the API of me, the me-cosystem, etc. In many sessions, people talk about giving responsibility to the user, giving responsibility to manage their data.
Not everyone wants, or have the skills, to take such responsibilities on an everyday basis. And he or she might at the end of the day have a strong feeling of loneliness. We tend to forget the fundamental asymmetry of power that exists in society and in economy. Shifting all the responsibility to the isolated individual is paving the way for more abuse of power from organizations.
Giving back power to the individual is not enough. We need to bring back into the picture the community, the crowd, the strengths of collective action. One individual alone can’t do it. We have to do that together.
Data Frugality
Collecting and storing data has a high energy impact, we cannot avoid it. This has not been mentioned in the conference. We should think more on how can we contribute to a form of data frugality (being cautious on collecting data, collecting what is needed and not all that is possible)?
EXTRA NOTE: Open Data
There seem to be a strong affiliation between actors involved in Open Data movement and the people involved in MyData. We have been moving from a collective claim: “Give back the data to the people who paid (with taxes) for generating it” to more individual claim: “Give back my data that I generated”, so it’s a shift.
