We’re joining an expert working group discussing and thinking about how to build services and products around Data Stewardship. We’re so looking forward to it.
We Got Selected! Accelerate Estonia Calls for Global Entrepreneurs
We answered the question… if you got given a country what would you do with it?… We would build a data economy and launch the first Data Institution in the world
Accelerate Estonia is a test bed for moonshot ideas. We combine the urgency of startups and the power of the public sector to test, validate and build solutions to global wicked problems.
We love you Estonia - thanks for being bold, digital and adventurous with us.
From the Digital Services Act Package to the Artificial Intelligence Act passing by the Data Governance Act
Is the European Commission really joining the dots?
Read the blog
Exploring Legal Mechanisms for Data Stewardship: Considering Data Foundations
Organisations, governments and citizen-driven initiatives around the world aspire to use data to tackle major societal and economic problems, such as combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Realising the potential of data for social good is not an easy task, and from the outset efforts must be made to develop methods for the responsible management of data on behalf of individuals and groups.
The challenges of the twenty-first century demand new data governance models for collectives, governments and organisations that allow data to be shared for individual and public benefit in a responsible way, while managing the harms that may emerge.
Produced by a working group of legal, technical and policy experts, this report describes three legal mechanisms which could help collectives, organisations and governments create flexible governance responses that can respond to different elements of today’s data governance challenge, for example by empowering data subjects to more easily control decisions made about their data by setting clear boundaries on data use, assisting in promoting desirable uses, increasing confidence among organisations to share data or injecting a new democratic element into data policy.
Want to know how to share data properly?
Are you developing policies and process to share large amounts of data between lots of different organisations? If you want to reduce costs, comply with relevant legislation, and make sure that everyone’s needs are met you will need novel ways to do this. The old way is experiencing significant difficulties.
How to increase responsible data sharing is one of the most significant questions of the 21st century. Access to rich datasets benefits economies and societies by facilitating not only timely and well-informed policies and decisions, but also the development of new and improved data-based products and services. Data Foundations, as one of the new types of Data Institutions, offer some unique qualities which create the opportunity for a cost-effective and trustworthy mechanism for multiple data providers to share more data, even if they are competitors. They use specific design principles offering a data governance model which includes independent oversight, a rulebook, and the ability to represent data subjects in collective decision-making regarding the data.
Designing Food Data Foundations with Design Fictions
So many times people ask “ what’s a data foundation?” closely followed by “why do I want one?”. This is because they’re new and not like anything seen before, so they can be difficult to understand and it’s hard to immediately see how to apply their use to the really complex world of large-scale data sharing. So, we’re working on exactly this and by using design fiction we’re bringing this to life through storyworlds including app prototypes, fictional documentaries, and even l minutes from a council of members board meeting. This allows us to explore exactly how these work, the decision-making and governance structures, and also how the digital ethics issues and led and managed. We’re evaluating our work. Please get in touch if you would like an invite to the evaluation on 10 December 2020.
The Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT) at the University of Lincoln together with the EPSRC-funded Internet of Food Things Network Plus have been looking at the role of data and digital collaboration and this project build on aspects of this work together with other pilot projects that have been run by the FSA exploring the benefits of Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) and Blockchain solutions.
How Data Trusts and Governance models can drive Economic Growth
We’re online talking about data institutions and how they:
Demonstrate how they protect privacy, comply with applicable laws, and have a common set of ethical principles
Build brand values, trust and confidence in all activities undertaken within the data sharing and usage
Reduce costs in data sharing, management and usage
Provide a mechanism for independent oversight and a common repeatable framework
Health Data Needs Trust by Design: Data Foundations Can Help
We’re discussing barriers to the sharing of health data as well as necessary safeguards and explore a variety of emerging multi-party data sharing models. We’re talking with academics and regulators about what’s required.
In this webinar, the speakers will provide insights into the needs of operational research (OR) in the healthcare sector, best practice to achieve legal compliance and meet ethical standards when sharing health data, and will compare solutions across jurisdictions.
Moderator: Professor Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon
Speakers: Professor Sally Brailsford, David Seymour, HDUK Robert McCombe, ICO Alexsis Wintour, Lapin and Elena Elkina, ALeada
We're Invited! Tourism is Re-imagining Itself in Portugal and Building a Trusted Data Sharing Model
Portugal is taking positive action. We’ve been invited to participate in building a Data Foundation to support the revival and reinvention of the Tourism sector. Through responsible, large-scale, data sharing we’ll be able to help discover new insights for accommodation providers, transport and many others to make the visitor experience even more amazing.
“A 28-hour marathon to bring forward solutions needed to mitigate the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic on Portugal´s tourism, to recover and to prepare the future of this industry of such importance to the Portuguese economy.”
For six days, we’re innovating with new ideas and models and we’re developing of the data sharing prototype to encourage more data sharing in this sector in a way that is responsible, ethical and can drive tourism in the country even further.
Online Assessment for Ethical AI Released by the EU Commission
On 17 July an online assessment was released called the Assessment List for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (ALTAI), which is a practical tool that helps business and organisations to self-assess the trustworthiness of their AI systems under development.
The tool supports the actionability the key requirements outlined by the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI), presented by the High-Level Expert Group on AI (AI HLEG) presented to the European Commission, in April 2019. The Ethics Guidelines introduced the concept of Trustworthy AI, based on seven key requirements:
human agency and oversight
technical robustness and safety
privacy and data governance
transparency
diversity, non-discrimination and fairness
environmental and societal well-being and
accountability
A Child Named Facebook
The Honour and the Dishonour: Responding to the New Oversight Board
There is an emerging recognition that independent oversight in data governance is a good thing. It’s very early days for Facebook in their narrow focus on some content decisions, but perhaps this is the beginning of something great? Or perhaps not.
We're supporting the Global Hack
The Global Hack is an online hackathon designed to share and rapidly develop ideas for urgently needed solutions in the face of the current crisis, as well as to build resilience post-pandemic.
Our prize pool for the best ideas is 195k euros.
The Global Hack has already drawn attention across the globe - covered by Forbes, Silicon Republic, CNN among others - and brought on board a fleet of world-class mentors, such as Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, former President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Khaliya - public health specialist and a neuro-technologist.
€6 Billion to empower Europe with data. Data sharing is in the spotlight
Shifting from data centres to robots, cars, and connected devices means data creation is more personal and more prevalent. Sharing it will power the digital economy.
The EU has put forward a “data strategy whose ambition is to enable the EU to become the most attractive, most secure and most dynamic data-agile economy in the world” as it recognises that data is the “lifeblood of the economy” and will improve decisions and better the lives of all of its citizens.
It recognises that a core part of this strategy will be an investment in improving its governance structures for handling data and to increase its pools of quality data available for use and reuse. Data sharing needs to balance the flow and wide use of data while preserving high privacy, security, safety and ethical standards.
Data Foundations are one practical way to achieve this and we’re particularly interested in projects which start with “We’re having challenges sharing our data with multiple parties because [fill in the blank as you wish…].”
It's time for businesses to lead on the trust issue. Including diversity, sustainability, and the use of data
Business is trusted more than the government and media. This is a really important message for CEOs. 87% of respondents to the Edelman Trust Barometer want stakeholders placed first, rather than shareholders.
Do something for the good of the whole society.
Richard Edelman sent a clear message at Davos "...now is the time for business to step into the void..." The 2020 results demonstrate that the trust framework has morphed as people are increasingly and urgently concerned about their economic position. The businesses that win will be focusing on employee retraining and skilling them up so that they stay relevant and prosperous in the decade ahead.
When you have enough data you don't need to send soldiers, in order to control a country
Yuval Noah Harari, the author of 'Sapiens' and 'Homo Deus' addressed Davos with a scorching warning about data and technology risks to human civilisation.
Summed up in a simple equation: B x C x D = AHH (Biological knowledge x computing power x data = the ability to hack humans) Well worth spending 20 minutes of your time watching.
What’s a Data Guardian and Why Do I Want One?
Here’s a prediction for 2020 (and beyond). In the future, organisations will want and welcome, and may actually be required, to have independent oversight of their data-sharing practices.
This new decade heralds the age of accountability and transparency. It will not be acceptable to mark their own homework as to how well they are doing with data governance. No longer will forward-thinking Directors wish to leave decisions on data, and its control, closed and concealed between the data sharers themselves.
Want to know more about Data Guardians and their role in Data Foundations? Click here.
One Data set. 50 Million Americas. Mostly Unregulated and No Independent Oversight
Anyone worried about this should start to consider new data governance models and Data Foundations may be one option. Congratulations to the New York Times for publishing this
Now the Australian Human Rights Commission wants privacy laws adjusted for an AI future
It is one of 29 proposals that the commission has proposed as it seeks to address the impact of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, will have on human rights…
Aimee Chanthadavong has an interesting article on ZDNet about the modernisation of “privacy and human rights laws to take into account the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as one of 29 proposals put forward in its Human Rights and Technology discussion paper.
"We need to apply the foundational principles of our democracy, such as accountability and the rule of law, more effectively to the use and development of AI,"
Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow