By Mike Mahony
One of the biggest privacy concerns today is what is happening with all of our personal data. While many dismiss this issue as unimportant, the problem is becoming larger and larger with each passing day. We are about to propose something not many have proposed before–data should be a form of property.
In recent months, European and Asian public officials and industries have called for data ownership principles to be developed, above and beyond current privacy and data protection laws. They have taken the added step of introducing official policy guidance and legal proposals that offer to accelerate the realization of a property rights structure for digital information. The question is how can ownership of digital information be achieved? How can those rights be transferred and enforced?
The calls for data ownership always emphasize the impact of ownership on the automotive industry and the vast quantities of operational data which smart automobiles and self-driving vehicles will produce. It is curious that this issue is not being considered in consumer-facing statements addressing the data being collected by their vehicles.
To formulate our proposal, we also considered continued advances in scientific research, quantum mechanics, and quantum computing which confirms that information in any digital or electronic medium is, and always has been, physical, tangible matter. Unfortunately, to date, data regulation has attempted to adapt legal constructs for “intangible” intellectual property or to express a series of permissions and constraints tied to specific classifications of data (such as personally identifiable information). These ideas take the onus off the company collecting the data and put it squarely on the shoulders of the data’s owner.
Based on the preceding, we propose that regulation of digital information assets, and clear concepts of ownership, can be built on existing legal constructs that have enabled electronic commercial practices. We propose a …read more
Source:: Medium
