Empowering individuals with their personal data: the Self Data charter

For 5 years now, the MesInfos team (by Fing, a french NGO) has been exploring the Self Data scenario: the collection, use and sharing of personal data by and for individuals, under their complete control and designed to fulfill their own needs and aspirations. To improve one’s self-knowledge, evaluate past decisions, make better and more informed choices in the present, share information and collaborate with others, contribute to common endeavours, The goal of the MesInfos project is to engage organizations in giving back the data they have on their customers to them, to restore trust and the balance of powers.

During those 5 years, we explored, we analyzed, we experimented (a 300 users experiment, the first of its kind), we collaborated with our international peers, we produced knowledge on the usage, the architecture, the challenges of such a paradigm shift in a digital economy which is mostly based on business models such as tracking people and using (or even selling) their data for the sole gain of the company.

Obviously we don’t do it alone! Our partners (private organizations – banks, insurance providers, retailer, telecommunications giant, energy providers, … – and the public sector) and a whole ecosystem of startups, researchers, schools, developers, collectives, and many and varied “partners-in-crime” are on the journey with us.

In 2016, it’s not only about the journey anymore, it’s about the destination. We need to take actions so that the Self Data scenario arise from paper and experiments into reality. That’s why we are starting the MesInfos Pilot – as we described it in our last post, to gather organizations holding personal data, platforms, a territory, and an innovation ecosystem to pave the way for a concrete Self Data world (in which organizations are giving back data to their clients under no time limits).

Self Data principles are on the march – in the strategy of pioneer organizations and in the public agenda – the international event Mydata 2016 will embody that dynamic. All of us might not call it Self Data, but the goal we agree on is the same. This is the right time to claim those principles in a loud and clear voice and to open them through the Self Data Charter.

Those signing the charter agree on a common “Self Data story”: roles (users, data controllers, platforms, reusers); the importance of protection and control of personal data (regulations, consent, security, …); empowered individuals (informational self-determination, use value, data literacy, portability, …).

This charter is a tool for the MesInfos Pilote and for everyone who feels like us, to lay the principles of this iconoclastic scenario that tries to rebuild the relationship between individuals and organizations on a more equal basis. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about those principles in Helsinki at Mydata 2016!

Open and download the Shelf Data Charter here

Text by:
Marine Albarede and Manon Molins
Fing