William D. Eggers, Rob Hamill, and Abed Ali (2013). "Data as the new currency – Government’s role in facilitating the exchange”
About the Text
Why is data considered a currency, why is data important and where are they actually exchanged?
Data in our world
Right now, we already live in a world where personal data has an economic value and therefore is bought, sold, and traded. The text dives mainly into the part of the government inside of this topic.
Even though the government is keeping itself away from this topic somehow, it’s one of the biggest producers of data – and they also provide the public with a lot of free data. In the paper, they say that more than 1 million data sets from governments are also free for access on the web.
This leads to the question “Will government encourage and stimulate a vibrant exchange in this new currency, or will it just get in the way?”.
If we look at how much data is there, 90% is actually just data created in the last two years. Much of the new coming data will consist of personal details – things that getting collected through browsing the internet and Instagram such as interests in products, movies, and also which candidates they support.
The different marketplaces for data
Open Data Providers
Government agencies that are collecting a huge amount of data while doing business.