Should we sell our data? A panel on the ethics of individual data monetisation.
Channel: Streamr
Date: 2019-10-31

In 2019 we are Post-Snowden, Post-Cambridge-Analytica and Post-Privacy. But despite all the scandals and data breaches, not much has happened to curb the powers of the tech giants who have facilitated the erosion of our privacy. Quitting Facebook hasn’t been the answer nor has the GDPR solved the mess. What if we instead of trying to protect our data, launched a counter offensive to undermine Google’s and Facebook’s monopolies? What if we - instead of them - sold our own data?

The data we’re giving away for free is worth billions of dollars. According to the futurist Jaron Lanier, “a small family could in the very near term earn something like 20k dollars a year from the value of their data.” Beyond the personal financial gain, democratised access to open data would encourage innovation, benefit research and thereby create healthy competition online in an industry ripe for change.

Selling our data might be a palpable solution - but is it an ethical one as well? Privacy activists would rather bring an end to all data collection. They argue that no value should be put on personal data and that doing so destroys our dignity as human beings. So who is right?

Panel line-up

Carl Miller - Research Director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, DemosPrivacy International
Shiv Malik - Author, Head of Communications, Streamr
Renate Samson - Open Data Institute
Valentina Pavel - former Mozilla Fellow at Privacy International
Chair: Naomi Colvin - Blueprint for Free Speech

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