Take-Aways (AI)
- Amstutz calls for data ownership in response to the incomprehensibility of computer code and the lack of control over data usage.
- A lack of transparency enables big data companies to collect data unnoticed and control behavior through algorithmic governmentality.
- Data ownership would legally assign the data “produced” by users to them and prevent appropriation by third parties.
- Effective protection requires collective law enforcement, as individual lawsuits alone do not appear practicable.
Marc Amstutz intervenes with a guest commentary in the today’s NZZ in the discussion about data ownership (initiated in Switzerland by Eckert and continued in particular by Fröhlich-Bleuler). here). He sees “weighty reasons for a data property, with the following arguments:
- People cannot understand computer code. They therefore cannot monitor what happens to their data on the Internet. That’s why Big Data companies can collect data unnoticed and control users’ behavior (Amstutz speaks of “algorithmic governmentality”).
- Data ownership would assign the data to the user who “produces” it. This means that not everyone can freely appropriate data, because otherwise users could sue. However, only collective enforcement would be realistic.