6 ways data sharing can shape a better future
The COVID-19 pandemic surfaced the shortcomings of the world’s collective approach to data. Inability – and sometimes unwillingness – to share and use data to combat COVID-19 or to protect against predatory uses of data have negatively impacted society. A lack of trust combined with asymmetric economic interests are slowing progress. The importance of finding solutions to improve outcomes in times of crisis is undeniable, but enormous opportunities also exist across a myriad of ordinary use cases and for normal day-to-day life outcomes.
There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day at our current pace, but that pace is only accelerating with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). Most of this data is siloed – it is trapped in walled-off databases – even within a specific jurisdiction. The inaccessibility exists due to a variety of complexities, cutting across policy, regulatory, commercial and technological barriers.
How can we create opportunities to unlock data to solve critical challenges? Whether those purposes are for climate, health, mobility or others. What can better outcomes look like? Importantly, how do we ensure that any governance models developed are grounded in responsible, ethical and fair use?
Today’s technology advances allow us to enable responsible data sharing in ways that were previously impossible. Coupled with ethical and innovative commercial and policy enablers, better outcomes are possible with best efforts among collaborative entities. Data
The Data for Common Purpose Initiative (DCPI) is a first-of-its-kind global initiative formed to design a governance framework to responsibly enhance the societal benefit from data.
The framework, launched December 2020, was created to refocus data policy and models towards common purposes that will enable differentiated permissioning of the same data, depending on context. Such flexible data governance models could enable government-led data exchanges that can promote a transition to a data-driven economy.
Historically, institutions and existing policy and regulatory models have attempted to balance data protection with business incentives. The DCPI will reorient governance to the realities of data sharing, developing a framework to enable access to data for intended and agreed upon purposes, without compromising individual privacy rights.
A recent report, Data-driven economies: Foundations for a common future,explores some of these themes further, looking into the key enablers businesses, civil society and government must get right in order to lay the foundation for a better future through data sharing.
A new report from the World Economic Forum, Data-driven economies: Foundations for our common future, outlines five requirements which systems and governance models need to meet to leverage data for better outcomes. It explores how new systems and governance models can create a commercial, technical and policy environment to unlock the full value of data for society.
With responsible and new data governance models, we can design for a better future. The following six examples imagine how we can solve critical problems through new data governance models that responsibly combines data from personal, commercial and/or government sources, while removing some unintended policy barriers.
The challenge: Approximately 10% of the global population or 475 million people are affected by a rare condition, with an estimated 15.2 million individuals expected to have clinical genomic testing for a rare condition within the next five years.
