Data Governance in a Trilemma: A Qualitative Analysis of Rights, Values, and Goals in Building Data Commons

Abstract

Abstract Most of the discussions on data governance stress legal and technological aspects, while avoiding the discussion of power, stakeholder interests, and value. In order to move from formal debates to operational institution-building, we ask about the goals of data governance for different stakeholders and why data commons can be useful in achieving them. We discuss the evolution of data governance over time and cast light on the antagonism between three main goals of data governance: protecting fundamental rights, generating economic value and serving public interest. Given the necessity to navigate this conflicted political economy of data, we introduce the data governance trilemma (DGT) model. We turn to data commons as an institution capable of solving the collective action problem and negotiating acceptable configuration of the DGT goals. In order to operationalize data commons using DGT, we conducted workshops combining the critical success factors (CSFs) method with a deliberative Delphi technique. We find that the systemic configuration of data governance should be restructured towards data sovereignty, founded on institutional trust, protection of rights, and obligatory data sharing with the public interest in mind. Based on our results, we claim that unless we build data commons to steward data as a democratic medium, a lack of legitimization will riddle attempts to govern data better, and societal benefits will fail to manifest.

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