Despite the new EU digital package of regulation nearly completely adopted, many fundamental questions still remain open. Current regulation does not go far enough in terms of challenging the dominant business model based on data exploitation. At the same time, large companies gain more and more power from drawing inferences about people, deriving insights based on information that might be about you. This deepens power and information asymmetries, brings novel risks from inference predictions, and opens questions whether we might need a paradigm shift to data regulation.
Central to the Ada Lovelace Institute’s work to ‘rethink data’ is the question: ‘What is a more ambitious vision for data use and regulation that can deliver a positive shift in the digital ecosystem towards people and society?’ This is explored in the report publication on Rethinking data and rebalancing digital power, looking at four areas of change across infrastructure, governance, institutions and public participation.
The aim of this panel is to reflect critically on fundamental questions that are left unaddressed by existing regulation and use of data, as well as on potential opportunities that can prepare the ground for more ambitious transformations in data-driven systems that benefit people and society.
• What are some of the fundamental questions we need to tackle, beyond the EU Data Strategy?
• How can we challenge the wider socio-technical and economic infrastructures that enable the vast collection, management, and sharing of data?
• At the confluence between data and AI, do we need a new paradigm for how we understand data processing and identification in light of inferential analytics?
• How is the economy of incentives changing in digital markets with the adoption of the new EU regulatory package?
