MIT Media Lab – 2013 Legal Hack-a-thon on Identity

Ray Campbell argues quite elegantly and convincingly that the “data ownership” paradigm is not the correct paradigm for achieving privacy and control over personal data. The notion that “I own my data” can be impractical especially in the light of 2-party transactions, where the other party may also “own” portions of the transaction data and where they might be legally bound to keep copies of “my data”.

Instead, the better approach is to look at “transparency” and visibility into where our data reside and who is using it. Here are the four questions that Ray poses:

• Who has my data
• What data they have about me
• How did they acquire my data
• How are they using my data

Transparency becomes an important tool disclosure management of personal data. These questions could be the basis for the development of a  trust framework on data transparency, one which can be used to frame Terms of Service that both myself and the Relying Party must accept.