Personal Data Control to Stop the Creepy Factor

Today’s Guest Blog Author is Mark Lizar. We’re pleased to share Mark’s thoughts with our readers. Mark founded Identity Trust, a personal identity, social enterprise, as a community interest company. Was an early developer of a Vendor Relationship Management model for identity. Working on the premise, much like P3P, that people would have identity management preferences. (still ahead of its time) During this time Identity Trust developed a surveillance trust framework, which is currently being used for other projects. Mark Lizar also served as secretary of the former Privacy and Public Policy WG (P3WG) within Kantara Initiative. He’s currently active in the Information Sharing WG (ISWG) pushing innovation in the area of meaningful notice via the OpenNotice initiatives under the ISWG.

Disclaimer: opinions expressed are that of the guest blogger and not necessarily reflective of a Kantara Initiative formal organizational position.

Regarding the My Data Vs Open Data topic, a constructive place to start may be with the premise that people need to have control over their personal information. For Open Data to not be creepy its use with personal information needs to be based on personal preference and control. At the moment we have very little control of personal data (even though we have the right to control our own data) and this is a tremendously big and important issue at this time!
Without this personal data control Open Data, IOT and emerging sensor driven Smart Spaces start to get very creepy!
There are a lot of things that prevent personal information control at the moment. A major challenge is the fact that privacy policies and terms of services are closed each company has custom policies and private infrastructure for the management of personal information (and our own personal preferences). This needs to change!
In addition, companies lock up personal data so its difficult and virtually unusable contextually preventing people from asserting preferences, making use of open data or using new IOT devices.
Most significantly, Privacy laws were made when there was no digital infrastructure for people to control their own information. This means the laws are focused on “old school” concepts of Data Protection and control of your data, instead of the other way around which is data protection for self-control and use of My Data. (Privacy by Design Data Protection not Disempowering Data Protection Law that is in place today)
We are now on the precipice of Smart Spaces (spaces with sensors that are aware of people). Sensors are being built into everything, our things are being hooked up to the internet and the need for personal information control to protection personal freedom is very apparent.
Smart Spaces are a great case study for discussion as they illustrate the convergence of IOT, Open Data, and Personal Information Control (PIC) in practical ways both online and off. Smart Spaces will thrive on Value for People, Control of Personal Information and Notice
With Android & IOS 7 building in support for Smart Bluetooth sensor discovery the reality of ubiquitous sensors to make Smart Spaces usable by people is here and will start to be everywhere in 2014.

We, in the Open Notice community and Kantara Information Sharing Work Group, are creating a specification for an Open Notice Consent Tag, with the aim of making it into a standard for the systematic discovery of policies and terms on and offline. The aim is Open Notice will open up the controls for personal data and with it we can all start making Smart Notices for Smart Spaces.

In fact, another topic of great importance is that of interoperability. Open Notice will standardize the discovery of Open Data and IOT in Smart Spaces so that personal data, and its control, is held by each individual. (To Stop the Creepy Factor)
Open Notice, and the discovery of Open Data big and small, is something that should be championed/sponsored by the Open Knowledge Foundation, Open IOT, Open Rights, and Open Notice. As it will take a community to converge and make a standard we can all use.
Please feel free to contact me if you’re working on, or would like to work, on this topic further.
Kind Regards,
Mark Lizar
SmartSpecies
+44 (0) 7738382658
Co-Founder of opennotice.org