Urgent steps must be taken at city, national and EU level to stop data being misused to line the pockets of private companies and manipulate behaviours, says a new report written by Nesta, the innovation foundation as part of the DECODE project.

Common Knowledge: Citizen-led data governance for better cities, argues that data can and should be a new form of public infrastructure and a force for social good, but for this to happen the data ecosystem needs to be transformed, not just regulated. Currently too much data is either misused – hacked, exploited or used improperly – or under-used – restricted to a very narrow financial conception of value.

This is the final report from the DECODE project, which ran successful pilots in Barcelona and Amsterdam over the last three years, allowing citizens to decide who they share their data with and on what terms. DECODE is a major EU Horizon 2020 project delivered by a consortium of 15 European partners, including Nesta.

Through DECODE’s pilots, using technology including Attribute Based Credentials and advanced cryptography, communities in Amsterdam and Barcelona were given the ability to:

• Sign political petitions without having to reveal sensitive personal information while participating in digital democracy platforms, such as https://decidim.org, reaching tens of thousands of people
• Log into local social networking sites with greater control over what data is being shared and for what purpose
• Share sensor data about noise nuisance and air pollution with their communities and council without security or privacy risks, setting their data sharing preferences via a smart contract platform
• Prove their identity or other characteristics with a simple application without having to disclose sensitive information

Discover more about DECODE technology and pilots here: https://tools.decodeproject.eu.

The DECODE project began in response to fears about how personal data was being misused by Big Tech. The Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted the potential for this data to be abused if it gets into the wrong hands. The growing use of tech in healthcare also raises questions about how people can be protected from use of their personal data which could disadvantage them.

The report argues for radically new ideas about how the value of our personal information can be returned to citizens. On its own, an individual’s data has limited value, but when combined it can have huge power and create public value. DECODE is calling for the establishment of a ‘data commons,’ that can be scaled across Europe, where groups of people can pool and leverage their digital footprints on terms decided collectively. The concept of a commons provides a useful set of principles to support privacy-enhanced sharing of data for public value, with the aim of reconciling both personal and collective control, while maintaining transparent, accountable and participatory governance over data.

Francesca Bria, DECODE founder and Project Lead, former CTO of Barcelona, says, “A key battleground is control over data and who is going to own AI services built with that data: will it be controlled by big businesses and the state or by citizens? The DECODE project declares that data produced by the citizen belongs to the citizen, so that the immense economic value that such data represents should be returned back to citizens. This model can be implemented at EU level, via a European Data Trust, underpinned by DECODE kind of infrastructures- decentralised, privacy-enhancing, enabling data interoperability and data portability- that foster a citizen-centric data economy. Data sovereignty in this way can become Europe’s new competitive advantage.”

Tom Symons, Head of Government Innovation, Nesta, says, “DECODE has demonstrated that an alternative decentralised data ecosystem is possible. Through DECODE’s pilots in Amsterdam and Barcelona we have moved the idea of data commons from theory to practice and paved the way for it to become the new public infrastructure of the 21st century. Now we are calling for city, national and EU governments to commit to providing the funding and support needed for this model to really take off”

-Ends-

For more contact:

Juliet Grant in the Nesta media team: [email protected] / +44 (0) 20 7438 2543

Notes to editors:

-DECODE (DEcentralised Citizen Owned Data Ecosystems) is a European Commission funded project to explore and pilot new technologies that give people more control over how they store, manage and use personal data generated online.

-DECODE is delivered by a consortium of multidisciplinary partners - including, the Municipal Institute of Technology of the city of Barcelona (IMI), Dribia Data Research, Eurecat and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunta from Spain, Amsterdam City Council, Dyne, Stichting Katholieke Universiteit and the Waag in the Netherlands, Politecnico di Torino from Italy, CNRS from France, Arduino from Sweden, and innovation foundation Nesta, Thingful, ThoughtWorks and UCL from the UK.

About Nesta

Nesta is a global innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society. We've spent over 20 years working out the best ways to make change happen through research and experimenting, and we've applied that to our work in innovation policy, health, education, government innovation and the creative economy and arts. Nesta is based in the UK and supported by a financial endowment. We work with partners around the globe to bring bold ideas to life to change the world for good.

www.nesta.org.uk | @nesta_uk