Data Coops and Power Dispersal in Digital Society

Michele Loi from the Digital Society Initiative at the University of Zurich discusses the concept of data cooperatives and their role in distributing data power. These cooperative structures allow for democratic control over data management, emphasizing individual ownership and shared asset utilization. It explores different models including socialist, liberal, and libertarian data cooperatives, each with unique approaches to data sharing and management.

• Data Coops
• Digital Society
• Power Dispersal
• Cooperative Structures
• Data Management

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Uploaded on Sep 08, 2024 | 0 Views

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1. 1 MICHELE LOI, DIGITAL SOCIETY INITIATIVE, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER

2. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM WHAT IS IT? Cooperative legal form Provides services associated with personal and group data management One person one vote (per data subject) Democratic control over management No profit (in certain jurisdictions) Ownership of physical capital does not translate into voting rights

3. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM WHAT IS IT? Cooperative members Define goals and values of using their own data Control management Provide their data (personal and de-identified) to be used as an individual/shared asset

4. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM DIFFERENT POSSIBILITIES A) Socialist data COOP All members must share all (properly anonymized) data (brought to the COOP platform) for common goals Established by the COOP management implementing to the democratically approved goals and value framework

5. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM DIFFERENT POSSIBILITIES B) Liberal data COOP Each member decides what data to share (personal & anonymized) with whom and for what purposes. The COOP management/democratically approved goals and value framework constrain data-transactions: The range of admissible/excluded sharing goals The range of admissible/excluded partners The range of data transaction prices (if individual money reward permitted at all) The COOP platform transaction fees and membership costs

6. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM DIFFERENT POSSIBILITIES C) Libertarian COOP Each individual uses the platform to transact data for any purpose (with minimal controls for unlawful use) COOP charges fees for shared personal data management / marketplace services and infrastructure (including cybersecurity)

7. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM DIFFERENT POSSIBILITIES N.B. Mixed regimes are possible: e.g. socialist for anonymised data + libertarian for personal data

8. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM HOW CAN IT ARISE? Data rights, esp. portability Data-subject engagement by different promoter organizations Research subjects Consumer organisations Workers organisations (e.g. taxi drivers) Trade unions Political organisations Philanthropist NGOs Universities and other institutions of higher learning etc

9. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM MOTIVATIONS Economic value: super-additive insights from data linkage, (within a range: marginal increasing returns of data) Privacy: Privacy self-management (privacy =data control) Group privacy (privacy = preventing harmful information gain) Equality of opportunity (analogies: pre-distribution (Hacker) universal capital grant (Ackerman and Alstott) property-owning democracy (Rawls)

10. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY Socio-economic inequality: prevention better than cure Power and responsibility inequality (status, agency control over productive resources) more important than earning/consumption inequality (as such) Current data economy: steep pyramid of access to data-power. Data subject (user of platforms) vs. platform controller. Distributing human capital (i.e. better education for all) may not be enough. Other forms of capital must be distributed to promote equality of opportunity.

11. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: ECONOMIC VALUE Significant economic value only after critical mass Economic value <-> data-control trade off E.g. all but socialist models -> biased data (reduces data value for many applications) Economic value <-> privacy* trade off Individuals who share their personal data maximise economic value, those who do not reduce it. Incentives? Objection level: medium/high *Privacy=prevention of informational personal gain

12. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: PRIVACY Should the majority decide: if ALL anonymised data should be shared AND/OR if individuals should be allowed to share their personal data e.g. for research on IQ, or insurance research? e.g. for personalised insurance premiums? what about (reasonable) disagreement? Objection level: low

13. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: PRIVACY AND CYBERSECURITY Will a data COOP be able to offer state-of-art cybersecurity (e.g. competing with Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc), without relying on Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc? Will risk-adverse citizens trust the data COOP for their cybersecurity? Objection level: high

14. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: TRADE OFFS (1) Efficiency - democracy trade-off Will oversight by democratic (member) assemblies prevent agile and effective management? Privacy - democracy trade-off Will democratic (member) assemblies sacrifice privacy for the sake of economic value? Possible solution: constitutional privacy norms, requiring super-majorities to be changed

15. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: TRADE OFFS (2) Efficiency - democracy trade-off Will competition large multinational platform companies be able to offer more and better services? Complexity - democracy trade-off Will the most interesting applications of data involve transactions that member assemblies are not able to properly assess? Will control by member assemblies be only nominal?

16. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: TRADE OFFS (1) [1. ] Any entity that holds valuable data will face immense economic pressure to squeeze as much value from that data as possible. [2. ] When the entity is a private, for-profit business, accountable to shareholders, this presents an intractable conflict. (Ligett & Nissim 2019) (1) implies that data COOP also face the same pressure (2) the COOP governance is not a magic bullet. When the entity is not a private, for-profit business, but has a powerful management, the conflict still exists and can only be mitigated by engineering and practicing the right forms of accountability

17. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, OBJECTIONS: MODEL - RELATIVE For the data-socialist COOP Will managements become ruthless economic value maximisers putting members privacy and ethics at risk? For the data-liberal COOP Will individual self-management be too burdensome and inefficient, leading to disaffection to the model For the data-libertarian COOP Will COOP be seen as enablers of anti-social, unethical behaviour by their members and transacting companies?

18. LOI - UZH - DATA COOPS AND THE WIDE DISPERSAL OF DATA POWER DATA CO-OPS WORKSHOP THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM THE EVOLVING DATA ECOSYSTEM The answer to some of these questions depend on the kind of data ecosystem to which data COOPs contribute: Can there be a constructive relation between patient COOPs and data- analytics companies in health care? Can there be a fruitful engagement with platforms? Will dominant platforms switch from a walled garden model to an open model, promoting open standards? Will AI providers develop novel ways to take advantage of COOP infrastructures?

19. THANKS FOR LISTENING NOW YOUR QUESTIONS