From Data Serfdom to Data Ownership: An Alternative Futures View of Personal Data as Property Rights

Michael Nycyk

《Journal of Futures Studies》 24卷4期 (2020/06) Pp. 25-34

https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202006_24(4).0003

摘要

Internet users' production of vast amounts of their personal data is used by companies and governments, not always for the benefit of humankind. Gaspard Koenig, founder of the Génération libre think-tank, calls this mass harvesting and mining data serfdom. This repositions the internet user as workers in exchange for perceived benefits of using various internet applications. Koenig provocatively advocates enacting cultural change where liberalist ideas of data ownership are weaved into legislation and can be drawn upon by internet users to control the use of their data. This article outlines his views that are supported by using Inayatullah's (2015, 2009) Causal Layered Analysis Futures method to illustrate the current data serfdom problem and suggest an alternative future solution. It concludes with a discussion of possible solutions that may assist in preventing darker new realities from emerging that data serfdom and loss of it as a property right may cause.

關鍵字

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) ； Data Ownership And Control ； Data Mining ； Liberalism ； Metaphor ； Profiling ； Property Rights ； Serfdom ； Social Algorithms