Make Personal Data Ownership Cornerstone of New Social Contract, Academic Says
Humans live in a "paradoxical situation" in that we believe our personal data belongs to us while, in reality, it doesn't, Vilnius University professor Paulius Jurcys said in an article published Tuesday. He called for a new social contract where people own and control their data.
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We have "little genuine influence over how technology companies like Facebook, Amazon, OpenAI, Google, Apple and others use our data," he wrote in "A New Social Contract; Reclaiming Ownership of Our Data."
Data collection is rampant. Jurcys noted that cars have become "mobile data collection platforms" and that LinkedIn, in September 2024, updated its terms of use and announced that submitted posts and other profile information would be used to improve the platform's AI models, without users' prior consent.
These and other examples illustrate the digital world's inequality: "the data people generate is raw material for technological advancement."
Tech giants spend billions each year to "improve" their services, while collecting personal data on "so-called 'legitimate' grounds," Jurcys wrote. At the same time, companies try to convince users that their digital footprint is essentially worthless. Public records show, he said, that basic personal data, such as age, gender and location, is typically valued at only a few cents, while sensitive data, such as payment history or health information, might be worth just a few dollars a month.
People, however, tend to value their personal data much more highly, he said, pointing to Harvard University studies showing a massive gap between how companies and individuals perceive personal data. While study participants were willing to pay just $5 a month to protect their data privacy, they would insist on as much as $80 per month to give up access to that data.
If data was truly private, he wrote, people would have complete control over it and decide who could access it. A key part of this idea is the personal data storage account, where each person would store data in their digital wallet.
This human-centric data architecture would shift from the current opt-out model, where users must continually ask companies not to collect their data, to an opt-in model that would let users decide who can access it.
This model is already gaining traction in tech ecosystems around the world and opening markets for personalized services and products, Jurcys added. "These emerging ways of using personal data provide a glimpse into a future that we will share with new AI-powered life forms: robots, personal AI twins, and AI assistants."
New synthetic life-forms are already among us in the form of smart devices and AI-powered assistants, Jurcys wrote. Humans and AI agents can coexist to the benefit of humanity, he argued, adding a call for a future where humans and data become the cornerstones of a new social contract.