data trusts+
building trust in Aotearoa
My talk for the NZ Government Data Summit in Wellington, March 2020. Slides at https://www.beautiful.ai/player/-M1YN-6j6aoMefdJZEcB, published (like this content) under a CC-BY 4.0 International licence. Also published on Linkedin.
Kia ora all — it’s an honour to be here :)
I’m here today to talk about data trusts and other such data institutions as ways to increase trust in Aotearoa’s data and help us unlock its full value through sharing it more widely, more wisely, without putting people at risk.
we have a problem
Data stewardship’s a big deal.
Data volumes are growing by 30% to 40% each year. And as humanity collects, stores, manages and uses ever larger amounts of data, it’s more important than ever that we do it well.
It means sharing and opening data wherever possible, and using it to tackle the challenges facing our civilisations and our planet.
It means sound data strategies and data governance.
Because data is increasingly exploited by companies and governments to further interests which often aren’t ours, the idea that data needs trusted stewardship to generate real benefit is gaining traction. Both genuinely and for trustwashing purposes.
_How_ to do this, however, is far from easy.
I think that the coalescing concepts of data trusts and other forms of data collaborative are a particularly exciting and potentially powerful way to do this.
introducing data trusts+
The concept’s still a very new one, so there’s no one definitive definition.
A current working definition I quite like, courtesy of the Open Data Institute, is that a data trust is a form of data collaborative, “a legal structure that provides independent stewardship of data”.
The ODI goes on to give 6 characteristics it believes a data trust should have:
- a clear purpose
- a legal structure
- (some) rights and duties over stewarded data
- a defined decision-making process
- a description of how benefits are shared, and
- sustainable funding.
As the conversation has progressed, people are suggesting that we use the term data trusts only for entities which have fiduciary duties — this won’t always be needed or appropriate, of course, so we need to look at other types of data institutions, including data collaboratives and cooperatives, data clubs, and data commons.
And existing organisations can be data institutions, too: for example, some government agencies.
I won’t be diving into the details today, but suffice to say there’s a lot of conversation about exact mechanisms, frameworks and definitions.
One thing is clear, though — data management, categorisation and governance will all be absolutely key to improved, ethical data access. And easy-to use, repeatable frameworks like data trusts and other such data institutions have enormous potential.
part 1: data trusts+ and Aotearoa
So, let’s think more practically about this all. While many I’ve spoken with in Aotearoa have assigned data trusts and other such institutions to the too-hard basket, I don’t believe that’s the case.
What value could these sorts of data institutions have for Aotearoa New Zealand?
How could they help us head off increasing data capture by a few large (and generally exploitative) organisations and companies, allow better flow of data to drive true social / environmental / economic benefit for us all, and retain or even improve our ever-waning trust?
2 mechanisms for joy
I’m most excited about data trusts+ in terms of two primary mechanisms:
- as a means for individuals and communities to have more say and control over how our data is used, and by whom
- as a means for private companies , NGOs, and governments to share data through a trusted third party intermediary, where they can’t / won’t directly due to competitive or other (eg reputational or privacy) concerns.
While I can see ways for pretty much every sector in NZ to benefit, here are some primary use-cases. Note that I focus strongly on ethical, life-centred ones.
Māori data sovereignty
Groups and organisations — including government — throughout NZ either already see data as taonga, or are beginning to. Data trusts+ could be a valuable way to better unlock data’s value for New Zealand, while still protecting it.
medical data (not like 23andMe!)
This does what it says on the box. Rather than the current all-or-nothing situation, we could decide who could do what with which parts of our data, with potentially _huge_ positive benefits for medicine, and therefore all of us.
artificial intelligence (AI)
NZ’s artificial intelligence industry (I won’t regale you with my AI isn’t AI rant) isn’t doing as well as it could and should be, and one of the reasons for this is lack of access to data. Data trusts+ could potentially be a way for those with data, to share said data with AI-using organisations both more easily and more ethically.
smart cities ad digital twins
Smart cities and their next-gen digital cousins, digital twins, both require and generate ever-growing amounts of data. One of the many major issues around this is how to _share_ the data so that it benefits rather than exploits people and systems. Data trusts+ would be a way for government, community, NGO and private sector organisations to steward and share data. Civic data trusts in particular could be really useful here — and there’s some great work around this happening here and in Australia.
digital identity
As the debate hots up over who should control our digital identities, and how, data trusts+ could provide an alternative to some of the current, suboptimal (to my mind) models and possible options, by giving individuals control over the components of their digital identity for different uses, without requiring them to try manage and control every aspect, every time (a nigh-on impossible task even for the highly digitally literate). Certainly, it could mean the Googles and Facebooks and problematic governments of the world could stop being these arbiters. #selfsovereignty
Crown Research Institutes (CRIs)
New Zealand’s CRIs hold a veritable treasure trove of data, but commercial agreements and intellectual property sensitivities — as well as technical debt — make it difficult for them to share data. Data trusts+ could serve as trusted third party intermediaries to allow equitable data exchange.
government
Data trusts+ could provide a means for us to to give consent to government to share data about us — for different use cases — amongst themselves, to build better services and delivery.
agriculture + other primary industries
Water quality, environmental pollution and animal ethics are huge issues in and around agriculture — one of our primary industries. Data trusts+ could help our organisations share and use data better on wider levels, for example catchment sustainability, in such a way that they’re not concerned things will come back to bite them later. Fear of how things might be perceived is a _major_ blocker to organisations sharing data, and as a result to sectors improving their effectiveness, efficiency, behaviour and thus reputation.
conservation
A key issue with sharing conservation-related data is that it could unintentionally _harm_ affected species, for example by showing hunters and poachers where target populations might be. Data trusts+ could help to improve data sharing while still protecting the rights of other species. [I’d like to give a shoutout here to local charity wildlife.ai, who’re using artificial intelligence to combat extinction and enhance conservation.
financial data
Groups overseas are beginning to advocate that anonymised personal banking and financial services data should be held in public data trusts.
…and so much more!
These are just a few examples. There are so many more!
I’ve not started waving my hands around about data trusts and the sustainable development goals, the concept of data ownership (and why it’s so problematic), who should and should not be running these, etc.
Nor have I gone into how one might build the systems for people to find these things, for the data sharing to actually occur, and so forth.
Let me know if these topics interest you, though :)
I _will_ touch on how data trusts+ could be used for open data, as well as shared data.
part 2: data trusts+ and openness
When people speak about data trusts+, I’ve noticed that they’re often talking about shared data, as opposed to open data.
For the purposes of this talk, shared data means closed data shared between specific groups of people, but not available openly / publicly. Open data, on the other hand, is data available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Both are important, and both have tremendous value.
The conversation I’ve seen has generally conceived of data trusts+ as a means to control where data goes, and who has access to it. But it’s not the whole picture.
Data trusts+ could be just as important for opening data, as for sharing data.
distrust and closedness
There’s no shortage of research looking into the barriers to opening data. And there’s no shortage of barriers.
Many of them involve trust.
Companies don’t want to collaborate to open data, as sharing their data with each other could impact their competitive advantage.
Government agencies don’t want to open data, as they’re concerned it could make them look bad and / or damage their political capital.
Senior government and private sector leaders don’t want to open data, as they still view knowledge (and by inference, data) as power.
And groups of humans of all sorts battle, frankly, to share. A natural tendency to protect our territory often overcomes loftier notions of sharing, transparency, openness and non-zero sum games.
[Even though almost nothing is a zero sum game, many of us still insist on letting others persuade us that almost everything _is_.]
And let’s not forget that we’re starting to share less and close more as we increasingly lose faith in organisations and their ability to behave well or in the public interest.
trusted openness…
Data trusts+ could help. Because the best way to build trust is to demonstrate trustworthiness, not to ask for trust.
Here, they’re not only a means to control who has access to data. They’re a way to improve how we collect, store and publicly release data. Think of it as looking a through the length of the pipeline, if you will. And yes, these effects are just as valid for sharing as opening data, too.
…for everyone
They’re a means to build resilient, transparent co-governance structures for data.
A way for companies to share data with a trusted third party who can then combine and release it.
A way for government agencies to share governance, responsibility, management and thus risk for opening data. And a way for them to co-develop the datasets they’re collecting and storing initially, and to help make the datasets as useful — and life-centred — as possible.
A way for Ministers and other senior leaders to let go of the whole ‘knowledge is power’ paradigm, realising that in sharing and opening data, together, they build a gestalt of data-related value.
And a way for all of us to be able to better trust both sources, uses and destinations of the data we need to tackle the crises we face. And so learn to share and collaborate more, in ways which build rather than destroy value.
Because we’re #bettertogether.
part 3: datatrusts+ and you
If, like me, you’re tremendously excited about the potential of these data institutions, consider the sort of role you can see yourself playing, at the individual, community, organisational or even sectoral level.
How would you like to contribute? How can we all collaborate and build Pure Awesome?
join the evolution…
As we all get started on this journey, some collaborators and I are currently collecting use cases for a pilot trial or two. Specifically, we’re looking for:
- datasets to which you’d like access, or
- datasets you have but are having trouble sharing, or
- specific problems you want to solve.
We’re also keen on building a New Zealand community of interested folks.
And yes, we’re definitely learning from the pilots people have been running so far.
…of a kinder, stronger, more resilient Aotearoa
I’d love to hear from you. Let’s get this thing going, and help to build a kinder, stronger, more resilient Aotearoa.
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Interested in learning more? Get in touch via data4d.nz, or check out some of the bookmarks I’ve collected at diigo.com/user/aimee_w.
You can also check out more of my talks and writings on all things #openX (and more besides) at linkedin.com/in/awhitcroft.
