Notes pre panel session at ORGCon
Posted on Jul 24th by William in Uncategorized
Here we are at the first ORGCon. Prof Jimmy Boyle (@thepublicdomain) is a legend: sharp, really funny and a great motivator. Can’t wait for @tom_watson to get him in front of the DCMS Select Cttee.
Many mentions of my near neighbour the BPI lobbyist Richard Mollett (whose undoubted talents we’d all love to see put to better use) and of my local MP the DCMS Minister. We all want to see @jeremy_hunt come out for radical and effective copyright reform to make it fit for the digital age. He’s not scared, for better or worse, to cut the Arts Council down to size. Let him be fearless and energetic in making copyright work for everyone, including artists and consumers of culture, in the digital age.
Interesting factoid for me: until 1978 (c) term in the US was 28 years, renewable for another 28. Yet only 15% of writers chose to renew the term. It just wasn’t worth it. So 85% of works went into the public domain after just 28 years, and the rest 28 years later. Jimmy Boyle also made the point that we could lobby for an absurd new (c) law:
that big artists born in odd years henceforth get double royalties and big artists born in even years get triple royalties, and everything else goes straight into the public domain
This plainly unjust and daft suggestion would be a great deal better than what we have to today with copyright and #DEAct, let alone what we may get with #ACTA.
Dear Jeremy Hunt MP, Minister for culture media and sport: your country needs your help on this!
Here are meanwhile below some notes for what I [del "may say" insert "just said"] in the 1730 session on “the future of privacy”:
ROUGH NOTES FO RPANEL SESSION – FUTURE OF PRIVACY
Big thank you to the privacy activists. They spotted this first, and have campaigned tirelessly. But their task hasn’t been easy; I’m not sure the right people have listened. There are some good products but not much market for them. I dont think “privacy” is now the best term or the best basis for engagement for what is at stake.
I’d prefer to talk about dignity, control, power and able all value: the real value of personal data, a much greater value when the data comes from the individual, is managed and controlled by the individual, independently verified where necessary but always permissioned by the individual. Let’s call this volunteered pesonal information.
What are the key technologies for a new emerging market in volunteered personal informaiton over which the individual exercises control and where the individual is the beneficiary, who realises the value of the personal data?
1. Personal data store – the individual’s counterpart to every CRM system you’re on (see eg The Mine!, eDentity, Paoga or the social enterprise I’m involved in Mydex CIC)
2. Access to a rich and open market in online verification and authentication services. Beyond OAuth/OpenID: where the individual can request and deploy the digital driving licence, qualification, proof of creditworthiness or entitlement
3. Selective disclosure capability with the characteristics of PETs (information cards, u-Prove, technologies like Higgins, standards such as those being defined by Kantara)
The real importance, as Caspar said to me once, is not in the release of some technology but in the network effect it makes possible. What we’re after is a simple but deep change of culture based on a recognition that our personal data is not the origanisation’s to exploit; it’s ours to share as we think appropriate. We simply need to be better equipped to do it.
The 10-year picture is
- we’ll have our own health records which we can share with whom we want
- same for personal portable education records
- finance (like sadly now defunct Wesabi, but under our control and management)
- shopping habits
Single button subject access request to get the data from various services and populate the PDS
- mobile phone location data (dont mind mob services so long as they’re under my control)
- smart metering: all in favour of better energy usage, but not telling EDF when I use my kettle or placing control over the “OFF” switch somewhere in Whitehall
Huge economic potential of VPI: 10 x Googles by 2020
At heart not the state, benighted National ID Scheme, not MS Hailstorm, not the data rapists/aggregators…but the individual, and new social institutions.
[Note: that was as far as I went because time was short]
This is what I’m working on:
- a charity for stable standards and open source code
- a social enterprise (CIC): entrepreneurial but regulated, so it can create the platform and the rules but remains asset locked
- we foresee more entrepreneurial ability to create new service and deals drawing on permissioned VPI. Buy cars/houses/ manage your health or finances.
Mydex starts live service September, with
- NetMums social network with 800k members
- 2 x London Boros with 600k+ residents
- RB of Windsor & Maidenhead
- one huge central government customer database
plus: authentication services, and we hope to have priv sector RPs also. Legal observer, NGO observer on privacy, academi observer.
You’re all welcome to join in. Download what they have on you; share your address + contact details if you wish. Prove your address, electoral roll, paid council tax. Samll start; this aud shd appreciate the significance
Developers: platform for developing apps for the ind
- free
- entrepreneurial. There will be a mkt.
