Shifting power through data governance

This study is part of a collaborative research series for Mozilla's Data Futures Lab. It explores how power can be shifted through data governance. Learn with us about the ideas, risks and opportunities of this new innovation landscape for the internet.

Over a decade of scholarly writing and research into data governance law and theory show that different pathways for ‘stewarding’ data within trusts, commons, collectives, collaboratives, fiduciaries, and more, are indeed opening up.

These various approaches each have their imperfections, but at least in theory there is hope for alternatives to help redefine how we conceive of data to address imbalances of power between data holders and data subjects. The fluid and overlapping definitions of data stewardship evident in literature and theory inevitably carry over into how we consider examples of them in real life. In practice, innovators of all kinds and in different contexts are still at the beginning of figuring out what works, for whom, and with what data governance approach.

In this paper we explore data cooperatives, data commons, data collaboratives, data trusts, data fiduciaries, data marketplaces and indigenous data sovereignty. What you will find here is a simple overview of each approach, including at least one initiative, organization, or company that exemplifies it. Our aim is to make it easier to navigate the field and recognize key terms used by scholars and technologists.