Vision

The vision is to create for New Zealand a data sharing ecosystem that is safe, trusted, inclusive and high-value, and under the control of its participants. We hope to give New Zealand an internationally competitive advantage in social and environmental outcomes, data-sharing-based entrepreneurship, and in science.

The New Zealand Data Futures Forum has developed four principles to guide and underpin the development of a data-use ecosystem for New Zealand. These are: Value, Inclusion, Trust and Control. Our initiative is about turning the New Zealand Data Futures Forum principles into practice.

• VALUE: New Zealand should use data to drive economic and social value, and create a competitive advantage. To achieve this, we need to create a data-use ecosystem that allows for the treatment of data as a strategic asset, encourages collaboration and sharing, and supports creativity and innovation.
• INCLUSION: All parts of New Zealand society should have the opportunity to benefit from data use; this means that communities and businesses need to be supported to adapt and thrive in the new data environment, not only to derive value but to participate fully in exercising their right to trust and control.
• TRUST: Data management in New Zealand should build trust and confidence in our institutions. This means that transparency and openness should form the foundations upon which we build the data-use ecosystem, and enhance New Zealanders’ understanding about what data is held, and how it is managed and used. Privacy and security are fundamental values that should be built into data frameworks and the full data life cycle, and all data collectors, custodians and users should be accountable for responsible stewardship.
• CONTROL: Individuals should have greater control over the use of their personal data. This means being able to determine the level of privacy they desire, on the basis of improved transparency and knowledge of how their personal data is processed and used. Informed consent should be simple and easy to understand, and individuals should have the right to correction, and the right to opt out.
• These four components create a positive feedback loop; having control over the use of one’s personal data supports a high-trust, inclusive environment from which value can be derived. The more value is created, the greater the incentive to share.

Why a commons-based approach? We propose that the data sharing ecosystem we create be a decentralised, peer-to-peer network.

At the present, the conventional model for transmitting information through a system is a top-down, hierarchical model that positions the sources and users of data around a centralised hub. There is little to no direct sharing between the 'spokes' of the hub, and data is owned and controled by a single, monopolising interest.

Networks that are characterised as having central hubs are not resilient. Not only are these systems fragile and open to failure since all traffic passes through a monopolising hub, they are also poor transmitters of information, breeding echo-chambers of similar thinking at the centre through a lack of diversity of interests and persectives. Such systems create asymmetric information flows, and accrue greater influence at the centre.

New Zealand would be better served by a data sharing ecosystem that operates on a peer-to-peer basis. Consider the term ecosystem; in an ecosystem there are cycles of consumption and exchange. In a data ecosystem, multiple actors perpetuate cycles of data generation, sharing, aggregation, cleaning, improvement and value-add. Entities in possession of data assets release their data into the network, where various players negotiate its sharing and use according to an agreed set of principles. Users of data may clean the data, improve its quality or integrate it with their own data sets to add value, and share the improved products back into the marketplace.

The challenge is to refine this vision by imagining what a commons-based approach to data sharing and integration would look like, what it would be able to do, and how it would serve the interests of all participants.

The success of this blueprint will be measured by its ability to converge upon a consensus on the manner in which we will share data, with provision made for the NZDFF principles. Success goes beyond a description of what the data commons should be able to do, we ought also to have reached a point where we can imagine a methodology for creating, funding and governing such a function. We need to achieve this by manifesting the New Zealand Data Futures Forum principles of Value, Inclusion, Trust and Control from the get-go, building the muscle for executing these principles through a collaborative process.

How much value is created and how it is distributed will determine the success of the commons.