DATA GOVERNANCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE A CIGI ESSAY SERIES I CONTENTS Introduction Data Governance in the Digital Age . 2 Rohinton P. Medhora Rationale of a Data Strategy Considerations for Canada’s National Data Strategy . 6 Teresa Scassa The Economics of Data: Implications for the Data-driven Economy . 14 Dan Ciuriak The Government’s Role in Constructing the Data-driven Economy . 20 Blayne Haggart Canadian Network Sovereignty: A Strategy for Twenty-First-Century National Infrastructure Building . 26 Andrew Clement The Role of a Data Strategy for Canadian Industries Treasure of the Commons: Global Leadership through Health Data . 34 Sachin Aggarwal Monetizing Smart Cities: Framing the Debate . 43 Kurtis McBride Big Data: The Canadian Opportunity . 47 Ian MacGregor Balancing Privacy and Commercial Values Preventing Big Data Discrimination in Canada: Addressing Design, Consent and Sovereignty Challenges . 54 Jonathan Obar and Brenda McPhail Data and the Future of Growth: The Need for Strategic Data Policy . 63 Dan Breznitz Domestic Policy for Data Governance Ungoverned Space: How Surveillance Capitalism and AI Undermine Democracy . 70 Taylor Owen Screen Time, the Brain, Privacy and Mental Health . 75 Norman Doidge Governance Vacuums and How Code Is Becoming Law . 81 Bianca Wylie Measuring the Economy in an Increasingly Digitalized World: Are Statistics Up to the Task? . 86 André Loranger, Amanda Sinclair and James Tebrake International Policy Considerations Data Libera? Canada’s Data Strategy and the Law of the Sea . 92 Ariel Katz Data Rules in Modern Trade Agreements: Toward Reconciling an Open Internet with Privacy and Security Safeguards . 99 Michael Geist Data Minefield? How AI Is Prodding Governments to Rethink Trade in Data . 104 Susan Ariel Aaronson Epilogue On the Internet, Everybody Knows You Are a Dog . 110 Rohinton P. Medhora CREDITS President ROHINTON P . MEDHORA Publisher CAROL BONNETT Senior Publications Editor JENNIFER GOYDER Publications Editor SUSAN BUBAK Graphic Designer MELODIE WAKEFIELD Watch the series video at cigionline.org/data Copyright © 2018 by the Centre for International Governance Innovation The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for International Governance Innovation or its Board of Directors. Inquiries may be directed to [email protected] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution — Non-commercial — No Derivatives License. To view this license, visit (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/3.0/). For re-use or distribution, please include this copyright notice. Printed in Canada on paper containing 30% post-consumer fibre and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®. Centre for International Governance Innovation and CIGI are registered trademarks. 67 Erb Street West Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 6C2 www.cigionline.org INTRODUCTION Rohinton P. Medhora DATA GOVERNANCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE 2 he data revolution has great economic potential. Indeed, some have already hailed data “the new oil.”1 This may be an imperfect analogy, but it does capture the excitement and T high expectations surrounding the data-driven economy. The prospect of extracting lucrative insights from rapidly growing pools of data is galvanizing entrepreneurs and investors in all sectors of industry. There is no doubt that ownership of data and associated analytical algorithms has taken on great importance for the future of many, if not all, commercial enterprises. The success of the most valuable companies in the world (Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft) is now underpinned by, above all else, a sophisticated capacity to collect, organize, control and commercialize stores of data and intellectual property (IP). Big data and artificial intelligence are fast becoming the lead drivers of wealth creation, and are increasing productivity, accelerating innovation and disrupting existing business models. Data and IP will soon become an essential part of the business strategy of all companies. John Deere, for example, no longer simply manufactures tractors — the company now also collects data on the farms where those tractors are used. It plans to leverage this data in the coming years to shift the control and profit structure of farming, similar to how Uber upended the taxi industry. Rohinton P. Medhora 3 But there is an equally, if not more, important • building institutions (such as information non-economic dimension to the data networks and governance processes) that revolution. In our rush to profit from data, we maintain or enhance Canada’s national must be sensitive to the fact that it is not a identity. commodity like grain or timber. Once created, data — and especially personally identifiable The delicate interplay between these goals information — exercises an enduring and means that they should be addressed together, uniquely potent influence on individual lives, within a single strategic framework. The essays social relationships and autonomy. While there in this collection examine these issues and the is still debate about whether individuals “own” multiple trade-offs involved in data governance the data that relates to them, it is undeniable nationally and internationally. They are that they retain a stake in that data — who grouped into five blocks. sees it, and how it is used. Finding ways to respect this interest while commercializing The first block motivates the discussion the data will be a central mandate of any data by outlining why data requires dedicated strategy. and consistent policy treatment (that is, governance). Data pervades every aspect of More broadly, we have seen how a greater our lives; it matters economically, politically capacity to access and manipulate data can and socially. It stands to reason that Canada alter our political landscape. Recently, we have — indeed every country — must have a witnessed the vulnerability of democracies framework within which data is managed to to shrewd (too shrewd, perhaps even illegal) achieve sometimes-conflicting imperatives. deployment of a data strategy by Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica on platforms The second block of essays provides three such as Facebook to influence the outcomes case studies — for health, urban and resource of the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US sector data — on how data might be better presidential race. The Washington Post has monetized than it is currently while also detailed Russian use of data-driven Facebook being put to non-economic uses. An example messaging campaigns to affect the outcome of of this is the proposal to create a national US elections (Dwoskin, Timberg and Entous open-source library of primary sector data to 2017). In short, the data revolution not only enable Canadian firms to “machine learn” it has huge implications for commerce, but for for purposes such as enhancing productivity or the very operation of liberal democracy itself. reducing environmental impacts. The third block of essays addresses the contemporary issue that gets the most There is an equally, if not more, attention: balancing the exciting uses of big important non-economic dimension to data with the desire to maintain a high, or at least acceptable, level of privacy. Two ways the data revolution. forward are presented: to use a property rights approach to data, and to put in place a strong incentive structure and regulatory framework Any national data strategy will have to to create equitable and ethical algorithms. address both the economic and non-economic While recognizing that the distinction dimensions of harnessing big data. Balances between “domestic” policy and “international” will have to be struck between numerous goals: considerations is a fluid one, the final two • reaping the gains from the economic blocks of essays deal with these two facets potential of data; of policy. The essays on domestic policy for data governance once again highlight why • respecting, or even enhancing, its data governance matters. For Canada, with fundamental privacy elements; its world-leading national statistical agency, the question of revitalizing Statistics Canada • preserving an open society and democracy; as the focal point of data governance in the • age of colossal amounts of real-time data is maintaining public security; and a live one. The key message from the essays in this section is that even a lack of policy is a policy choice, for it has real effects on the 4 Data Governance in the Digital Age John Deere collects data on the farms where its tractors are used and intends to leverage this data in the coming years to shift the control and profit structure of farming. (Photo: iStock.com) NOTES economy, on society and on politics. Laissez- faire is not neutral; it is just another deliberate 1 See www.quora.com/Who-should-get- credit-for-the-quote-data-is-the-new-oil. way to generate outcomes. The final block of essays, on the international dimensions of WORKS CITED big data and their governance, addresses the question of how international agreements, in Dwoskin, Elizabeth, Craig Timberg and Adam Entous. 2017. “Russians took a page from corporate America particular trade agreements, are being used to by using Facebook tool to ID and influence voters.” The govern data and its flow. Trade and economic Washington Post, October 2. www.washingtonpost.com/ business/economy/russians-took-a-page-fromcorporate- agreements more broadly are not the ideal america-by-using-facebook-tool-toid-and-influence- voters/2017/10/02/681e40d8- a7c5-11e7-850e- vehicles for the task, as we have already noted 2bdd1236be5d_story.html?utm_term=.6a81c9a4b3df. that data has other, important non-economic dimensions. Yet, they are the principal way the ABOUT THE AUTHOR international community is currently dealing with data. Rohinton P. Medhora is president of CIGI, joining in 2012. Previously, he was vice president of programs at Canada’s An epilogue concludes by making two points: International Development Research Centre. He received his doctorate in economics in 1988 from the University First, to riff off an iconic cartoon — on the of Toronto, where he subsequently taught. His fields of internet, everybody knows you are a dog.