Originally published in Forbes on July 1, 2019
Climate change on-one hand...and data sharing, security and privacy on the other, may seem like problems that exist in distant worlds from each other, but let’s take a harder look. They are both existential threats to our way of life; physical destruction of our ecosystem, or cloud-based destabilization of our political system and polarization of populations (just to start). In the world of transportation, small, electric vehicles could be a lifeline to lower CO2 emissions in our densest urban places, but data protocols and associated misunderstandings threaten to derail the scaling of these crucial solutions that would provide people with lower cost, sustainable transportation solutions from private sector companies, into publicly run cities.
Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors will pass a resolution “Supporting the Development and Adoption of an Open Source, Mobility-Focused Platform for Management of Cities’ Public Right-of-Way,” or The Open Mobility Foundation and the Mobility Data Specification.
How did we get here?
When Google introduced Gmail 15 years ago, on April 1st, 2004, they started a data revolution; beta-testing and quickly proving that people would gladly trade access to their most personal information in exchange for very high quality, and free services. I am not judging btw, this was a brilliant bet and has changed the workplace in innumerable ways, spawning dozens of new verticals including social media and thousands of start-up businesses with free-to-consumer, ad-based and data monetization revenue streams, from Facebook to Waze. What was not contemplated was the Pandora’s box of geolocational data + first-party and third-party data targeting, and in-app monetization (what apps in 2004??), the resulting data privacy issues, surreptitious breaches and uses of 3rd party data including the 2016 election fiasco… that would slowly take hold over the next two decades.
In 2019, we seem to take for granted that data produced by citizens, but on a private platform, is then “owned” by the company that grants access to the citizen and provides them a service. In the simplest of terms, in a moment of extreme, and wonderful innovation, Silicon Valley assumed ownership of a powerful asset. I don’t fault them for this, particularly when you are pioneering change in soon-to-be very competitive industries, and no one is really paying attention. It’s much like finding a new island and planting a flag and claiming ownership as countries did in days past. Having recognized that, and all of the unintended consequences in the last few years, it is now time for a new approach to “data stewardship” vs. “ownership, and as the EU’s GDPR shows, the time has come and industry, local and national governments and NGOs recognize this too.