Jeni Tennison in seven

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

1: What is the biggest challenge in making data open?

There are cultural challenges and then there are practical and technical challenges. We’re seeing a resurgence of the notion in government that the best way of getting value out of intangible assets like data is by selling them. But we get more value out of it when we’re able to combine it – when it’s able to get to those who need it to make decisions.

2: The misuse of data for political purposes has created a negative conversation about data. How can open data be used to benefit democracy?

Democracy Club brings together data about where polling stations are, the candidates standing and their voting record. This is vital democratic information that we need to turn up to the right place and make a good judgement. Data is collected and made openly available. The crying shame is that it is not for profit and a lot of the activity is based on volunteer effort rather than being supplied by the state.

3: What’s the biggest data challenge facing the government?

With leaders distracted by Brexit, it’s difficult for there to be the attention that is needed on data, so pulling together the national data strategy is a challenge – how to make sure it not only says the right things but follows through.

4: Is a future where individuals have more ownership over data a brighter future?

The notion of data ownership by individuals is fundamentally wrongheaded. We should instead be talking about what rights individuals, organisations and society as a whole have around data, and getting the right balance. Individual ownership of data has problems. One is that it leads to a conversation where you’re talking about people getting paid to supply data, being paid for something that is a fundamental human right – their privacy. Privacy becomes a luxury, in the words of Privacy International.

Data about any one individual is also about lots of other people. That can be in direct ways, for example my medical record is also information about my children, or quite indirect, such as data about me is also data about you because you’re a woman.

5: Is the term ‘consent’ going to become meaningless in future in terms of personal data ethics? 

There’s a difference between ethics and consent. A fundamental notion in GDPR is individuals give informed consent about uses of data that’s about them. The problems with that are terms and conditions that nobody reads – is that really informed? Even if you simplify them, you can’t really tell what the impact providing this data is going to have longer term and the complexities of how data might be reused.

Even when there is good consent, shouldn’t organisations just be looking after us? That’s where ethics comes in. We need organisations to deal with data in ways that are trustworthy. We need regulators and other accountability mechanisms to make sure they do, because consent isn’t enough.

6: Is more regulation the answer?

We surveyed people about who is most responsible for making sure data is used ethically, and 44% of people said government and regulators. We need regulators to put into place the right structures, but regulation doesn’t move as quickly as we need, so organisations need to do that on our behalf. What we’re seeing are organisations struggling with how they self-regulate – it’s quite difficult and it doesn’t necessarily make people trust you. So, organisations are calling for more regulation because it helps them to be more trustworthy.

7: What’s the biggest misconception about data?

The idea that data about you is only about you is the biggest misconception we have. Regulation and the way we talk about ownership is built on that conception and it’s not true – but we don’t know yet how to deal with it.

This article was first published in the January 2020 issue of Impact.