Data portability

This article is about Data portability (in general). For DataPortability (the project), see DataPortability.

Data portability is a concept to protect users from having their data stored in "silos" or "walled gardens" that are incompatible with one another, i.e. Closed_platforms, thus subjecting them to Lock-in (decision-making). Data portability requires common Technical standards to facilitate the transfer from one data controller to another, thus promoting Interoperability.

In a mixed economy there are capitalist incentives that motivate businesses to guard their respective assets. Governments allow businesses to protect such assets via limited-term Intellectual Property Rights. Even so, it often remains an ongoing task for public agencies to help overcome the urge of businesses, in this case acting as data controllers, to guard their pools of data on their customers, known as personal data or Personally_identifiable_information too zealously. In the interest of promoting exchanges of data that would be beneficial to general welfare, in many cases considered Consumer_protection, the following related activities have been introduced by public-minded actors in the European Union and Switzerland.

European Union

Data portability has become a new right in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation GDPR passed in April 2016. The Regulation will apply to data processors in countries outside the EU as well under certain circumstances. "Controllers must make the data available in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable and interoperable format that allows the individual to transfer the data to another controller." [1] Earlier the European_Data_Protection_Supervisor had stated that data portability could "let individuals benefit from the value created by the use of their personal data". [2]

Switzerland

Likewise, in Switzerland, a nation-state that is related to the EU only on a bilateral basis and as an EFTA Member State,[3] there is a trend moving in the same direction. A cooperative is proposing to have a right to data portability anchored in the constitution of the Swiss Confederation, and the proposal is being seriously considered in the parliament.[4] The cooperative is called MIDATA.coop.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "The Final European Union General Data Protection Regulation, by Cedric Burton, Laura De Boel, Christopher Kuner, Anna Pateraki, Sarah Cadiot and Sára G. Hoffman, Section II, 4". Bloomberg BNA. February 12, 2016.
  2. ↑ "European_Data_Protection_Supervisor (EDPS) (2015): Meeting the challenges of big data: A call for transparency, user control, data protection by design and accountability, Opinion 7/2015, 19 Nov., page 13" (PDF). EDPS. November 19, 2015.
  3. ↑ European Free Trade Association#EFTA and the European Union
  4. ↑ "Recht auf Nutzung der persönlichen Daten. Recht auf Kopie" (Right to the Use of Personal Data. Right to [obtain] a [digital] Copy), http://www.parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20154045
  5. ↑ "Das Recht auf Kopie – a Swiss-national and international movement towards digital self determination where citizens control any secondary use of their personal data". Retrieved April 15, 2016.
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