DTI’s vision for data portability
Today, I’m pleased to share Vision 2030, a report articulating our medium-term ambitions in the service of our mission: empower people by building a vibrant ecosystem for simple and secure data transfers. Over our initial years of operation, we have seen and helped shape steady developments with data portability implementations and regulatory frameworks. And the environment for portability is changing, sometimes subtly. Two changes of note are the increased value of proactively establishing trust, and the emerging role – and risks – of artificial intelligence. We wanted to share our evolved view and ambitions for the future of data portability, including qualitative and quantitative metrics that we are shooting for, as well as the work that DTI will undertake to make it a reality.
The Vision sets out three strategic objectives for DTI over the next four years:
- More tools: Delivering more tools that help people benefit from data portability in practice is, always has been, and always will be at the core of our organization. We will work to advance this by providing expert support to companies looking to make data available (including through our PDP Playbook), by catalyzing relevant collaborations and experimentations, and by engaging with authorities to support effective regulation.
- More value: Portability will not succeed without availability, awareness, and ease of use of its tools and technologies – and a clear understanding of the value of data transfers. We will work to improve user experiences, facilitate global alignment, share success stories, and identify and encourage new and valuable use cases for data portability.
- More trust: Our Data Trust Registry has a foothold, and from that, it will climb. We intend to increase data holder participation, data recipient registration and use, and align with regulator goals. DTR will grow and it will diversify in its scope and use cases, to help improve trust in the data ecosystem as a whole, to the benefit of all stakeholders. Our vision for the data portability ecosystem can only be fully unlocked once underpinned by a single global governance framework, and our Data Trust Registry holds the key.
You may have noticed that I didn’t mention artificial intelligence in any of those bullets. It’s not an oversight. AI is a layer, a factor that contributes to each of these objectives in varying ways. AI is changing the nature of how portability tools get built, and in particular opening new doors to transfers of data without explicit shared data models – because it’s easier than ever before to adapt data in a documented format to a new one, assuming sufficient scope. AI is changing the value of data portability as well, opening up new ways to learn from our personal data and benefit from it, as our hackathon earlier this year showcased. And AI is opening up new trust gaps, and opportunities for collaboration – should the challenge be accepted.
We’re ready for the opportunities and challenges ahead for data portability. We know where we are headed, and we know how to get there. Check out our Vision 2030 – and join us.