Introduction

The Data Commons Collaborative Design project is intended to catalyse the creation of a data commons for New Zealand; a data sharing ecosystem that is high trust, high value, inclusive, and under the control of its participants.

Technology and digital media are transforming the world we live in, and fostering the potential for more responsive, effective, transparent and accountable business, civil society, and government. This transformation is fueled by data and information, and promises a more prosperous, just and equitable society.

It’s been repeated ad nauseam that in this information age, data is the new oil. Just as oil powered the last industrial revolution, so data is the resource that must be mined and refined to power the socioeconomic models that are emerging from digital transformation. In the midst of this information revolution, entire industries – music, retail, finance, transport and accounting to name a few – are being disrupted to the point of re-invention. Even the state sector is making an effort to realign its operating model to capitalize on the potential of data-driven decision-making, and more of society’s decisions are being made with the assistance and influence of large dataset-driven computerized algorithms.

A huge and vastly profitable industry has grown up around the collection, integration and monetization of data. This information industry is an inherently extractive model for the business of releasing value from data. Data is kept in hierarchically controlled, centralized repositories, often owned by offshore companies, refined and integrated, and the value derived sold off for profit. This leads to fragmentation, and competition to own data, which is counterproductive and fails to realize the latent potential of the resource. The commercial imperative is to monopolise and own data, but data releases the most value through sharing and integration. Similarly, the public sector collects and stores vast quantities of data, much of which it is obliged to keep secure and private, especially the personal data of citizens. Government agencies are extremely reluctant to share data with one another, and generally do not give data enough strategic priority to adequately resource its management, maintenance and publication.

There is very little transparency around what data being collected, where it goes, who might purchase it, and we, the public, have little to no influence over how it is used.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Data is a whole new asset class; unlike finite natural resources and other tradable commodities, it’s replicable, interminable, infinite, and we are creating more every day. We generate data as we live, at an exponentially increasing rate as our environments become more observant and sensitive to us, and all the digital traces of our identities, activities and behaviours are recorded by the various intermediaries with which we interact. The value potential of this resource is limited only by our ability to manage it well. Unlike finite resources, which need to be managed for sustainability, data needs to be managed for utility.

We need to cease managing data via a neo liberal economic model of scarcity. Instead, we ought to treat data as an entirely new class of commodity that appreciates in value when translated into meaningful information, and create the conditions for this to occur. We have the opportunity to establish a model for data use and re-use that delivers more value back to the people who generate the data than just social media platforms that deliver marginally more relevant advertising.

We propose a way to easily and safely share and integrate data for widespread use; we’re calling this a data ‘commons’. Unlike the existing information extraction industry, the data commons will allow data to be stored, moved, exchanged and managed without intermediaries; a decentralized, peer-to-peer exchange that is owned in common. We are designing and prototyping the infrastructure for a market for information that is federated and based in commons principles. This blueprint document describes a safe, inclusive, trustworthy data use ecosystem for New Zealanders that drives value, is trusted and in the control of participants.