Who owns my digital footprint?

As the volume of personal data we generate skyrockets, many people remain unaware, powerless, and unable to unlock its full potential, warns NSSN Board member and global data and analytics expert, Dr Ian Oppermann.

Dr Ian Oppermann is a global leader in data and analytics and an NSSN Board member.

I was a guest speaker on a recent panel which was asked “will I ever own and control all of the data about me, and can I use it to optimise elements of my life”. 

It was in the context of health data, but the question was a showstopper.  

Surely the answer is “yes” or at least should be “yes”.   

Surely, I can hold all the data about me, at least the data I know about and consider to be important.  

I may not be able to access data from the video camera operated by the bank recording me walking past their building, or the digital record associated with the actual “tap” contact of my credit card on a physical EFTPOS machine.  

I might not be able to access data from the digital fingerprint of my struggling keystrokes and circular engagement with the website of the airline I unsuccessfully tried to book my holiday flights with.  

The question is, “could I” have access to these digital shadows or digital fingerprints?   

If I could, what would that mean in terms of the control I would have over the use of that data?  

Surely, it is about me and so I should be in control of it.  Surely, if I have been recorded in data in some way, I should know about it.  

No knowledge or control over data

Today of course, the answer is “no” to the knowledge and “no” to the control.  

So, who owns my digital “shadow” and how do I know how many digital shadows I cast? 

Today’s answer to the question of who owns my digital shadow is whoever has recorded me or my actions, or my preferences in the data.  

That is assuming of course that it has been done lawfully and is managed according to relevant laws.  

Today’s answer to the question “how many digital shadows I have cast” is that it is practically impossible to know.  

A follow-up question is what is the harm of me not knowing I have cast multiple digital shadows and not having any meaningful control over what is recorded in those shadows? 

Today’s answer is that no-one really knows.  

Imagine if we could store data streaming from our Fitbit devices during a workout, or daily blood pressure readings, in our health record. Credit: AdobeStock

Why data is captured

Companies and governments record and capture data through the many interactions with customers and citizens.  

This data can be used to improve and personalise services or can be used to learn about people like me.  

It can also be used to target people like me enticing to want certain products or services or even encouraging me to think in certain ways.  

Possibly even encouraging me to vote in certain ways.  

Coming back to the question of ‘can I control data about me and use it for my benefit as I choose’, imagine I could know which datasets exist and are the most valuable to me including data about my own health.  

Surely, I can at least have a copy for my own use?  

Today’s answer is unfortunately “no”.   

My Health Record data

Staying with health, there is a national effort to capture individual data in the form of “My Health Record”.  

While more than 90% of Australians have one, less than one third of us access them regularly, and most of these records are incomplete.   

Why? Here it gets tricky.  

Part of the answer is cultural. We have little hesitation about using social media platforms to project curated versions of our lives into the virtual world, while at the same time we hesitate to engage with the same granularity with platforms provided by governments.  

Would we store health data with social media companies?  

Fortunately, this is not something which is widely evidenced, but many are willing to use social media to confirm identity to access other platforms where health or other sensitive data is stored.  

Think of your favourite “digital wallet”. This is not quite the same as storing the data on a social media platform but heading into that direction.  

Health data needs to be up to date

Another challenge is that, while there are some financial incentives, no-one in the medical community is truly incentivised to keep your health records completely up to date and accurate.  

At present, the sort of heath data which is typically stored relates to medical appointments, prescriptions, vaccinations, known conditions, and monitoring of those conditions.  

We could however store data streaming from our Fitbit devices during a workout, or daily blood pressure readings, our mood swings, or even a copy of our genome from that home sequencing kit.   

Imagine if we added AI: what we could do with all that data!   

So, we currently live with several conundrums which eventually need to be tackled.  

We increasingly generate data about ourselves, deliberately though application of personal sensors, or inadvertently simply by engaging with the digital world.  

We do not yet know how to capture that data for our own use, we do not know really who we can trust with the data that is captured, and we lack frameworks for thinking our way into the possible harms which come from the generation and use of all this data.  

Surely, if this was any other domain, we would be taking this more seriously?  

Surely, we should be doing more than just jumping at our many shadows. 

Dr Oppermann was recently appointed as the Commonwealth’s Data Standards Chair.