With the Productivity Commission into ‘Data Availability and Access’ expected to hand down their final report later this week, Commission chairman, Peter Harris, delivered an illuminating speech to the ‘Committee for Economic Development in Australia’, arguing that consumers should have the right to trade their data in return for better services. Referring to the proposed new ‘comprehensive right for consumers’ included in the draft report, Harris said that companies must be more willing to share equal value in data exchanges or risk consumers withholding data.
It will be interesting to see how far the PC recommendations go when they’re handed down later this week. We’ll be providing additional commentary on this as they’re released.
Check out coverage and commentary on the speech here:
- The Mandarin –Peter Harris: rules forcing data destruction ‘akin to burning books’
- AFR – Share benefits of data with consumers or it could dry up: PC
- Technology Decisions –Consumers should benefit from sharing data
Over in the US, Senate lawmakers voted to prevent proposed privacy rules from the FCC from going into effect. The vote is part of a long-running battle between the FCC, consumer privacy groups and ISP providers around how and when companies are able to sell and share their customer’s usage information for advertising purposes.
In other news…
Professor Chris Pettit, Director of the city analytics program at the University of NSW, has come out in support of greater data sharing between the private sector and government when it comes to urban planning and improving the quality of life in Sydney, where the population is expected to double in the next thirty years.
WORTH A READ
Todd Yellin, VP of Product Innovation for Netflix, has shared some behind-the-scenes insights on how data is used to drive content personalisation at the streaming giant.
Join us – Minerva Collective event
Interested in becoming part of The Minerva Collective, our data for social good partners? Come along to the next meetup on Wednesday, April 5th and get involved in data for social good initiatives.
Until next week.