Digital Personhood: Digital Prosumer -- Establishing a 'Futures Market' for Digital Personhood Data
Lead Research Organisation:
Brunel University London
Department Name: Computer Science
Abstract
As networked digital technologies become more pervasive and diverse, it is possible to collect personal data generated across the Internet and to gather information on the different facets or personas of a person's patterns of consumption and lifestyle behaviours. This digital footprint constitutes their digital identity, i.e. their Digital Personhood. Currently, personhood data is fragmented, residing in various repositories across the Internet. It has been considered to be part of the data commons that the 'Big 3' Internet Companies -- Google, Facebook, Twitter-- and other similar organisations have been freely data mining, analysing and, crucially, monetizing. Google, for example, captures data about its search engine users and monetizes it to generate most of its revenue from advertisers who are interested in reaching out to Google's online users. A shortcoming of this advertisement centric business model is that technology intermediaries capture only a small subset of Digital Personas rather than an individual's entire personal data record or Digital Personhood. Furthermore, the individual whose personal data is being monetized by third-parties has no control on the collection process and the subsequent exploitation of his/her digital personhood data.
The challenge of this bold and disruptive proposal is to empower citizen prosumers -- citizens who both produce and consume data -- by utilising and exploiting the economic value of their digital self in a new tradeable 'futures market' in personhoods. Specifically the project will develop a 'micro-Persona eXchange', building persona futures products and management system applications to enable prosumers to monetize their personhood data. The success of this project will stimulate world leading research activity concerning the design of persona products and trading processes, including the ongoing development of novel intelligent data analysis techniques for mining digital personhood data.
The project will also consider how a 'futures market' for digital personhood data will be established in legal terms. Who owns an individual's digital personhood data is currently a moot point, with questions such as the suitability of property rights vs privacy rights to ensure data protection. Both organisations and the legal infrastructure need to accommodate this shift for the successful development of sustainable prosumer-centric business and economic models. The legal framework will notably ensure that the prosumer will be able to choose a curator (i.e a digital prosumer trading assistant) who will act as an intermediary between them and the micro-Persona eXchange when trading. With this in mind, the research will propose a draft for a Prosumer Protection Act.
The project has the potential to unlock substantial economic value for the UK Digital Economy, generating new revenue streams, and redistributing wealth in favour of the prosumer. The UK will have an opportunity to take the lead in establishing an innovative international futures market and thus be a global player, leader and innovator in what could be a key emerging industry i.e. Digital Prosumer Futures.
The challenge of this bold and disruptive proposal is to empower citizen prosumers -- citizens who both produce and consume data -- by utilising and exploiting the economic value of their digital self in a new tradeable 'futures market' in personhoods. Specifically the project will develop a 'micro-Persona eXchange', building persona futures products and management system applications to enable prosumers to monetize their personhood data. The success of this project will stimulate world leading research activity concerning the design of persona products and trading processes, including the ongoing development of novel intelligent data analysis techniques for mining digital personhood data.
The project will also consider how a 'futures market' for digital personhood data will be established in legal terms. Who owns an individual's digital personhood data is currently a moot point, with questions such as the suitability of property rights vs privacy rights to ensure data protection. Both organisations and the legal infrastructure need to accommodate this shift for the successful development of sustainable prosumer-centric business and economic models. The legal framework will notably ensure that the prosumer will be able to choose a curator (i.e a digital prosumer trading assistant) who will act as an intermediary between them and the micro-Persona eXchange when trading. With this in mind, the research will propose a draft for a Prosumer Protection Act.
The project has the potential to unlock substantial economic value for the UK Digital Economy, generating new revenue streams, and redistributing wealth in favour of the prosumer. The UK will have an opportunity to take the lead in establishing an innovative international futures market and thus be a global player, leader and innovator in what could be a key emerging industry i.e. Digital Prosumer Futures.
Planned Impact
Our research will impact on a diverse set of beneficiaries outside the academic community.
The general public, i.e. the prosumers -whether an individual or a business- will be able to monetize their digital personhood data in a new tradable 'futures' market in digital persona products. A prosumer-centric business model will provide new opportunities for new entrants in the market space traditionally occuppied by the 'Big 3' Internet companies - Google, Facebook, Twitter - which is based on their so far unfettered access and use of the prosumer's personhood data. Wealth will be redistributed in favour of the prosumer and the current organisational cultures and practices will be modified so as to take into account the prosumer's new economic power.
Within the business and industry sectors, the project's creation of a micro-Persona Exchange will lead to a disintermediation of current practices and a renewed intermediation, with distinctive business and economic models emerging, centred on the prosumer. Building on the open source software delivered by the project (with appropriate licensing), novel exchange start ups will appear alongside existing exchange organisations that will also benefit from these new business opportunities. Product and service suppliers such as Panasonic, as well as the suppliers of global IT digital technology infrastructures will be able to launch innovative products and services.
To accommodate the micro-Persona eXchange and this prosumer economy, redefining the legal framework will be essential to the project. Public policy and legislation on data protection, consumer protection, financial services regulation, will be affected. The project will notably explore the need for a Prosumer Protection Act in order to fairly balance the interests of the different stakeholders of the Digital Economy: the prosumer, the big companies of the digitial economy, and the Government. The project will also generate new tax revenues streams for the Government.
At the heart of this new business and economic model for prosumption, will be the protection of digital personhood data, a significant Cyber Security research challenge. In addition to the business analytics and intelligence opportunities, there are possibilities for intelligence harvesting in order to identify and defend the micro-Persona eXchange against Cyber attacks and international terrorist threats which have been identified as a 'tier one' risk in the National Security Strategy.
The project will provide the UK an opportunity to take the lead in establishing an innovative micro-Persona eXchange for a Digital Persona Futures Market, which has the potential to become a key industry at home and ultimately, beyond the UK national borders. By engaging its economic partners into an European and international Digital Prosumer Futures market, the project will impact on the European and US exchange organisations as well as on the supervisors involved in establishing banking and financial services regulations and policies, such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the US Securities Exchange Commission.
The general public, i.e. the prosumers -whether an individual or a business- will be able to monetize their digital personhood data in a new tradable 'futures' market in digital persona products. A prosumer-centric business model will provide new opportunities for new entrants in the market space traditionally occuppied by the 'Big 3' Internet companies - Google, Facebook, Twitter - which is based on their so far unfettered access and use of the prosumer's personhood data. Wealth will be redistributed in favour of the prosumer and the current organisational cultures and practices will be modified so as to take into account the prosumer's new economic power.
Within the business and industry sectors, the project's creation of a micro-Persona Exchange will lead to a disintermediation of current practices and a renewed intermediation, with distinctive business and economic models emerging, centred on the prosumer. Building on the open source software delivered by the project (with appropriate licensing), novel exchange start ups will appear alongside existing exchange organisations that will also benefit from these new business opportunities. Product and service suppliers such as Panasonic, as well as the suppliers of global IT digital technology infrastructures will be able to launch innovative products and services.
To accommodate the micro-Persona eXchange and this prosumer economy, redefining the legal framework will be essential to the project. Public policy and legislation on data protection, consumer protection, financial services regulation, will be affected. The project will notably explore the need for a Prosumer Protection Act in order to fairly balance the interests of the different stakeholders of the Digital Economy: the prosumer, the big companies of the digitial economy, and the Government. The project will also generate new tax revenues streams for the Government.
At the heart of this new business and economic model for prosumption, will be the protection of digital personhood data, a significant Cyber Security research challenge. In addition to the business analytics and intelligence opportunities, there are possibilities for intelligence harvesting in order to identify and defend the micro-Persona eXchange against Cyber attacks and international terrorist threats which have been identified as a 'tier one' risk in the National Security Strategy.
The project will provide the UK an opportunity to take the lead in establishing an innovative micro-Persona eXchange for a Digital Persona Futures Market, which has the potential to become a key industry at home and ultimately, beyond the UK national borders. By engaging its economic partners into an European and international Digital Prosumer Futures market, the project will impact on the European and US exchange organisations as well as on the supervisors involved in establishing banking and financial services regulations and policies, such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the US Securities Exchange Commission.
Publications
Guinchard A
(2018)
Taking proportionality seriously: The use of contextual integrity for a more informed and transparent analysis in EU data protection law
in European Law Journal
| Description | The aim of this project is to empower citizen prosumers (data sellers) by establishing a futures trading platform for their digital personhood (i.e. personal) data. The online trading platform has several layers linked through a common interface (available at https://digitalprosumer.co.uk). The layers of the DP Platform include: a) Digital Vault: the Hadoop-based personal data storage facility where intelligent data mining takes place to identify personas across prosumer data. b) Digital Exchange: the Java-based platform where the auction and matching of personal data takes place. c) Legal Framework: developed and validated by legal experts to give prosumers the ownership and protection for trading their personal data. This platform has been used within a series of pilot experiments using the student population to firstly test the platform in a real world trading scenario, and also to identify the level of user empowerment and disruptiveness to the current data markets (i.e. Google, Facebook). The findings from these initial experiments show that prosumers' empowerment utility when using the DP Platform and trading for money is higher than when using free services provided by the likes of Google and giving their data away for free. More experiments will be held over the next three months, including a session with members from the Community of Interest within the Data Science Partnership (Government Office for Science, Office for National Statistics, Government Digital Service) and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, in order to establish statistically significant findings from a wider sample population. Having the involvement of participants from the Government Departments in the Data Science Partnership will facilitate robust testing and expert evaluation of the Digital Prosumer Trading Platform, as well as obtaining a view on the relevance and national impact of the Platform for the UK Government. |
| Exploitation Route | To inform stakeholders/collaborators involved in advising or engaging in the creation and use of Personal data trading services including use of the Digital Prosumer Trading Platform. As a trading platform for Energy Prosumers |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Retail,Security and Diplomacy,Transport,Other |
| URL | http://digitalprosumer.wordpress.com |
| Description | The project is on going and has a number of societal or economic impacts; namely: 1. Our findings have contributed to development the Trust Framework and associated Scheme Authority specification concerning the commodification and trading of personal data. This involves Government, industry and academic stakeholders. 2. Our legal framework findings have informed EDPS (European Data Protection Supervisor) in their forthcoming reports on data vaults. 3. Our findings have informed a forthcoming IPO report on IP trading platforms. 4. Informed (i) the understanding of citizen empowerment from trading personal data, and (ii) highlighted the issue of provenance for automated reasoning and consent at the All-Party Parliamentary Group meeting on Data Analytics (January, 2018) on 'GDPR and BREXIT'. The matters discussed have been incorporated in a policy paper circulated to parliamentarians concerned with the progress of the Data Protection Bill. 4. Our findings are reflected in the Lords Select Committee publication "Government response to House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Select Committee's Report on AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?", June 2018, including the evidence volume "Written evidence volume: AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?", April 2018, to inform the Data Protection Act 2018. 5. This work has informed the development of trusted open models and the importance permissioned based modelling as part of the development of the Trusted Open Modl Institute at the Hartree Centre. |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Energy,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | House of Lords: Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Citation in: "Written evidence volume: AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?" |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | The Government fully supports innovative uses of data where it is used safely and responsibly. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is being brought into UK law through the Data Protection Act 2018, will support automated processing including the use of personal data in artificial intelligence and machine learning. |
| URL | https://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/Artificial-Intelligence/AI-Government-Response2... |
| Description | IP Trading Platforms for the Intellectual Property Office |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Title | Digital Prosumer Personal Data Survey |
| Description | In an increasingly digital world, our interactions with systems and devices across the Internet generate a significant amount of data. This personal data provides valuable information about the different facets of our lives and many are becoming increasingly aware of just how much it is utilised by organisations. In the majority of cases, citizens agree to allowing their personal information to be used in exchange for access to free services and/or discounts. The EPSRC funded Digital Prosumer project seeks to empower citizens by developing a personal data exchange that allows citizens to trade personal data in exchange for real money. The aim of this survey is to understand citizens' preferences in respect of a personal data exchange and consists of two parts: (1) questions regarding the current situation where use of personal data is in exchange for access to free services,(2) questions relating to a future scenario where personal data can be traded in exchange for real money. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Publication in progress exploring the data types prosumers are willing to trade. |
| URL | https://brunel.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/digitalprosumer_data |
| Title | Economic Model for the Behaviour of Prosumers |
| Description | The aim is to develop an economic model for the behaviour of prosumers in selling personal data |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Development of new economic models with the aim of publishing academic journals |
| Title | Personal EMpowerment Utility (EMU) Model |
| Description | The model is used to identify the degree to which Data Sellers are empowered (rewarded, satisfied) with the trading process. The trading process results in both gains and losses, so Data Sellers' expected EMpowerment Utility (EMU) is a function of their expected gains minus their expected losses which takes into account the cost of privacy. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Improving the understanding of the mechanisms by which the public are empowered when it comes to collection and use of their personal data in the development of the UK Governments Data Protection Bill at the GDPR and Parliament round table meeting at Portcullis House. |
| URL | https://digitalprosumer.wordpress.com/digital-prosumer/ |
| Description | Collaborative design, participation and evaluation of Digital Prosumer Trading Platform |
| Organisation | Government of the UK |
| Department | Government Office for Science |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Informing new possibilities for policy making around the idea of value, consent and privacy that is based on the commodification of personal data as well as providing a possible new source of behavioural intelligence i.e. the possibility of legitimate and contract based access to bulk personal data (tradable Personas) via the Digital Prosumer trading platform. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Informing the research and experimental design to enhance the outputs of the forthcoming Tech Trials conducted under the auspices of the Digital Catapult's personal Data and Trust Network and our own main trading experiment. In addition, gaining access to wider set of stakeholders and potential participants. Bringing new ideas concerning shaping (co-designing) the Persona templates and clusters from a bidder point of view. |
| Impact | Extending the development of the main experimental design specification in order to (i) provide a better understanding of the commodification of our own data, (ii) how a market experiment could provide a better understanding of the net value of data through the sum of a Price of a Problem versus the Value of Privacy, and (iii) the development of aspirational personas that encourage positive behaviour as a result of commodification of personal data i.e. incentivising people to drive persona-based positive behaviours. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Digital Catapult PDTN Trust Framework Initiative (TFI) Tech Trials |
| Organisation | Digital Catapult |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are collaborating with the Digital Catapult's (DC's) Personal Data & Trust Network (PDTN) where our personal data trading platform, under the Trust Framework Initiative, will be used in the Technology Trials commencing in April 2016. This will allow us to fully test the Digital Prosumer Trading Platform within a number of use cases and will provide us access to organisations that will play the role of buyers. We have contributed to the development of the 'Anonymous Marketing' use case. A letter form the Head of data and Trust at the DC stated, "The work is of direct significance to underpin the user controlled exchange of data in a way that enables the individual to gain a share of the value created in that exchange. We look forward to working with Professor Louvieris and the technology he has created, in the context of our Trust Framework Initiative which will bring together a number of large public and private sector bodies to trial a new personal data ecosystem". |
| Collaborator Contribution | The DC has provided the environment to create an operational Trust Framework by bringing together a number of large public and private sector bodies to trial a new personal data ecosystem. |
| Impact | Use case |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Title | Integrated Digital Prosumer Trading Platform |
| Description | The Digital Prosumer trading platform (the application) empowers citizen prosumers to realise the value of their personal data via a trading platform to establish a tradeable futures market in personal data. This comprises of the Digital Vault, the Secure Data Locker for Prosumer data, and PersonaMx, the micro trading exchange. Additionally, a fully supporting legal framework, which includes data protection, privacy policy, contracts and the rulebooks, is a key part of the platform. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | Impacts are: (i) contribution to the development of a specification for a Scheme Authority concerning the trading of personal data under the Digital Catapult Trust Framework Initiative. |
| URL | https://www.digitalprosumer.co.uk/ |
| Title | Persona MX digital personhood trading exchange |
| Description | The persona MX provides the trading platform for offers, bids, matching of Persona commodity futures. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | Currently for internal research use and constitutes a research instrument within the Design Science methodology. Further it is integral to the simulations/games to be conducted. |
| Title | Vault DX |
| Description | Vault DX provides a big data platform for storing prosumer personal data, conducting data mining for persona commodity product design, facilitating exchange with the Persona MX trading platform, and managing the pre and post trade processes which includes settlement. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | Internal impacts. The Vault DX artefact acts as a research instrument and simulation environment within the Design Science Research approach for the next stage of research. |
| Description | BIS, DE catapult, midata and mydex engagement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Stakeholder analysis that is aligned with government thinking on strategy, data and legal frameworks. Additions to advisory board and participation in future workshops/events. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2014 |
| Description | Centrica/British Gas/Direct Energy - R&D Collaboration Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The meeting was held to discuss the research, collaboration and commercialisation opportunities for the application of the Digital Prosumer Trading Platform for energy trading in Local Energy Markets. This meeting was attended by four Centrica directors and was conducted under NDA conditions. The output was an agreement to develop a proposal for funding. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Development of Personal Data Indices |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The aim is to develop economic indices that measure the value of personal data and to explore their implications in terms of sharing of information and economic impact This still ongoing but it is anticipated to produce one or two publication in academic journals |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Digital Personhood Network meeting 9-10 September 2015 Headingley |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop/meeting of all the EPSRC DPN/EMOTICON funded projects to present progress and outputs of projects, as well as look at future steps and collaboration opportunities. In addition, contributions were made to informing the development of the Connected Nation (a Digital Economy Outcome and Priority) for the EPSRC's Delivery Plan to 2020. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.digitalpersonhood.org/meetings.php |
| Description | Digital Prosumer & Privacy: Establishing a futures market for personal data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As citizens we are digital prosumers (who both produce and consume data) and generate significant amounts of data in our daily interactions with the world around us. Organisations like Facebook, Google and Apple make their livelihood from selling and analysing this data, though we as the data subjects do not see any of these profits, neither do we know precisely what is done with our personal data or who it is given to. The EPSRC funded Digital Prosumer project has developed an online personal data trading platform, integrating security and privacy principles to empower citizens to gain access to the personal data market and a new source of income. In this research seminar, we present findings from this research and explore how that affects our privacy. Mainly academic discussion as part of the University of Westminster's Research Seminar Lecture Series in their Business School. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | EMoTICON and Digital Personhood Meeting, 16-17 June 2016, Sheffield University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on progress and exchange of ideas in the DPN. Explored future possibilities with Partnership for Conflict, Crime & Security Research External Champion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.well-sorted.org/explore/EmoticonDigitalPersonhoodMeeting2015/documents/DPNEMoTICONDocRel... |
| Description | Empowering Renewable Energy Prosumers through Big Data Analytics, Big data analytics for smart power networks conference, IET London, Savoy Place - 8 November 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation Title: Empowering Renewable Energy Prosumers through Big Data Analytics SYNOPSIS Renewable energy prosumers are citizens who consume and produce renewable energy for self-consumption or to sell back to a grid. As more and more households embrace renewable energy sources, the question that nevertheless remains is how prosumers maximise their pecuniary benefits from exchanging their micro-generated renewable energy surpluses, say among a local community, and/or trading their associated personal energy behavioural data? In particular, this talk focuses on the role of Big Data Analytics for a Digital Prosumer Trading Platform that empowers prosumers to control and trade their personal energy behavioural data as a futures product. As a result of this presentation, I was invited to contribute to the development of a 'New Model for Energy' in Phase 2 of the Future Power Systems Architecture activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.theiet.org/ |
| Description | European Data Protection Supervisor meeting (25/01/2016) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The meeting was on 25 January 2016 as part of a lunch time informal seminar (2 hours) at EDPS headquarters in Brussels. Were present thirty or so members of EDPS and Prof Andrew Murray from LSE, invited alongside Audrey Guinchard (Essex). The presentation lasted twenty minutes and covered several points: data as object of trade (the project's choice to use database rights), the checkpoints for privacy and consent in the project, and the project's more general aim to trade futures. The questions/feedback hardly focused on the project. It seems that the points made were accepted as legally sound. The questions were mostly on the ecosystem surrounding the data vaults: rights on data, disparity of power between consumers/individuals and IT companies setting up vaults and how to avoid further discrimination and inequalities, role of insurance companies regarding risks and how to assess risks, role of the law to set the boundaries by reference to contract law, labour law and consumer law, with the latter two being seen as an attempt by the law to reinstate some balance into a fundamental equal relationship between individuals and companies. EDPS asked to keep in contact. They are in the process of drafting an opinion on data vaults. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Financial Conduct Authority |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Research assistant Florian Gamper discussed with the FCA the scope of the financial markets legislation regarding the project. In light of the information provided to them, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers the financial markets legislation is unlikely to apply to our project. Although the FCA does not give seals of approval, the FCA's opinion allows the project to be compliant with various legislations regarding financial markets. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | IT as a Utility Conference 6-7 July 2015 Southampton University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation and talk on DP project. This led to further collaboration on a Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security proposal submitted to EPSRC working with Oxford, Southampton, City and Essex Universities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.itutility.ac.uk/event/2015-itaau-community-conference/ |
| Description | Legal Workshop: Trading in Big Data (30 April - 01 May 2015), Brunel University London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Audrey Guinchard (Essex University) organized a legal workshop with academics specialized in various areas of law as well as a computer scientist from Vienna having publishing on markets in data. A representative from the European Data Protection Supervisor (regulator at EU level) was also present. Among the themes discussed, were: data as object of trade, aspects of privacy and data protection, trading and legal structure of the MX. The feedback centered around four points. Firstly, the project was well received and seen as a step forward in the field of data markets. Secondly, the privacy policy and the checkpoints for privacy and consent as part of the curation process to protect the prosumer were well received and confirmed as the step forward. Thirdly, the trading rulebooks were accepted. Lastly, the workshop showed a strong division between property rights and privacy rights on data, with many feeling un at ease to grant property rights on data. The outcome of the workshop was an invitation to present project and ideas at Brussels by EDPS on 25 January 2016, as part of the EDPS work on data vaults (in progress) and digital ethics (published). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://digitalprosumer.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/trading-in-big-data-how-should-its-extraction-be-re... |
| Description | Marketplace for Patents (BIS/IPO) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | DP team held a workshop at Brunel University (four people in attendance) with the team responsible within Innovation Directorate for Competition, Regulation, IP and Taxation issues, which includes providing a customer focus for the IPO. We briefly discussed work being undertaken in Hong Kong on establishing an IP Trading Hub, and noted that UCL, Imperial and Oxford are also doing some work around this and that some work is also being undertaken in the US. It was noted that the DP team are developing a platform from a European perspective, not just UK, and highlighted the complex range of issues that needs to be taken into account, including the legal framework, security issues and FSA issues. The Dowling Review was discussed in respect of how our research would appear to be a natural implication of the kind of policies considered in this review, the thrust of which is directed towards achieving better integration between academia and industry, including in IP exploitation to assist the overall growth of the economy. The workshop led to further engagement with UK Trade & Invest (UKTI) and a follow-up engagement with the IPO's Business Support Policy group who were working on a project around IP trading platforms with a view to recommending what (if anything) the UK government should/could do to aid companies in licensing/selling their IP. We contributed to the report by providing reasons why many of these platforms have not been as successful as many people believed they would be, based on our meetings with stakeholders of the failed US IPXI (Intellectual Property Exchange International). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016 |
| Description | Persona trading stakeholders |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Informed the "Bidders Perspective" of the trade and persona product design. Identifies potential participants of the trading game and new advisory board members. Also, provision of data forthcoming. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2014 |
| Description | Preparation of the conference Trading Big Data to engage the law scientific community |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The invitations sent sparked strong interests into the project, despite many law academics being unavailable for the original date of 18-19 December 2014. Discussion on some key issues has been started. Most law academics requested to be informed of the project's progress, and expressed their interest in participating at a later date (March -April 2015). On one key issue (property rights in data), the exchange of emails gave insights into the academic debates and informed the development of the legal framework. The conference is rescheduled to the end of Spring Term 2015. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Presentation of Data Protection laws' structure at the 15th Libre Software Meetings - Montpellier (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The audience asked a lot of questions on the practicalities of data protection implementation in the design of software products. The audience acknowledged its awareness of data protection was raised The audience was mostly the SMEs and computer scientists/programmers linked to the open source community. Questions were very much about how to apply data protection laws in terms of business models and design of softwares. The audience's awareness of data protection principles and philosophy was successfully raised. There were too many questions to answer within the time allocated and I had long discussions afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Presentation of the Data Protection laws' structure at Essex Science Summer School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The talk sparked questions on the reach of data protection laws for data analytics, and invitations to explain data protection. Feedback was very positive, with an Essex PhD student in computer science, who also runs his own company, explaining it was the first time he could understand data protection.I also received an invitation to give a presentation to the general public late 2014 (or early 2015) as part of a group on Big Data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Public Lecture Series - Protecting Digital Privacy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Lecture Series, exploring the problems of Digital Privacy in Our Digital Revolution. Dubbed the 'new oil', our personal data has become a commodity, one that powers new technologies and is increasingly mined and sold off. Our data is often used to manipulate us to buy, vote, and behave in a certain way. The intended purpose was to engage the wider public using a variety of social media channels (e.g. Youtube). The event attracted a mix of industry practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and the general public. There were many enquiries with an increased awareness including requests for further information from marketing practitioners and data scientists. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2018/Public-Lecture-Series-Protecting-Digital-Privac... |
| Description | Research collaboration with Cabinet Office looking at GIG Economy Reputation Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This working group is being established to help deliver and maximise the impact of an applied research project that will explore the potential for a peer-to-peer rating system, that will engender better trust and quality within the Gig Economy while giving low-skill workers reliable records of informal employment that can help them graduate to the formal economy. Distributed Ledger Technology may be a suitable platform for such a service, because it would prevent a single data-monopolist from ransoming workers' ratings data (as seen in current commercial p2p platforms) while avoiding the perceived invasion of state interests into private sector activity. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Roundtable meeting on GDPR and Parliament |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The aim of the roundtable was to examine the challenges and opportunities that the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) presents to Britain's companies and consumers. There were thirteen attendees to the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Daniel Zeichner MP. Jonathan Bamford, Head of Parliamentary and Government Affairs, Information Commissioner's Office was also a presenter at the meeting. Panellists discussed improvements to the Government's Data Protection Bill (DPB), especially ways in which industry can work with Government and regulators to ensure that the legislation processing through Parliament is capable of meeting existing demands, as well as being adaptive to the future to support innovation. It was identified at the meeting that more work needed to be done on the provenance of the automated decision making and how should privacy and consent be handled in artificial intelligence enabled or assisted contexts. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2018 |
| Description | TRILCon 2017 - 4th Winchester Conference on Trust, Risk, Information and the Law |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Two papers were presented at the conference. 1. Strengthening trust in EU data protection law: the use of contextual integrity for a more informed and transparent legal analysis (Audrey Guinchard, University of Essex) 2. Trading big data: power back to the individual? The potentials of establishing a futures market in data' (Audrey Guinchard, University of Essex; Panos Louvieris, Brunel University) The first presentation presents the project of trading big data as a means to reinstate power to the individual. The focus will be on the five checkpoints established to facilitate informed consent to big data analytics and trading. The second presentation relates to a paper to be submitted to the European Law Review, one of the key law journals in EU law. The paper argues that trust in EU data protection law can be strengthened, should the American framework of analysis of contextual integrity be used to structure the EU legal analysis. To determine the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate data flows, the decision-maker must follow a number of preliminary steps before engaging with the proportionality analysis. These two steps implicitly underpin the EU decisional process in the DPD and future GDPR, and the CJEU' own analysis. However, the EU data protection law approach remains intuitive. CI brings to the foreground the elements and thus guides the legal inquiry along recognizable elements that can be evaluated and re-evaluated in later decisions, bringing increased transparency, coherence and predictability to the current and future EU decisional process in data protection. Outcomes: David Omand (Sir David Omand was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, etc) highlighted the disruptiveness of the Digital Prosumer project and enquired about the required scale for this. We do not have those figures but an idea of take-up will be established through the experiments planned. Further, we have had follow-on discussions with Simon Stokes (partner) of Blake Morgan regarding collaboration in future projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/Law/Centre%20for%20Information%20Rights/Pages/-TRILC... |