Brazil Tests Letting Citizens Earn Money From Data in Their Digital Footprint (restofworld.org) 15
With over 200 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by population. Now it's testing a program that will allow Brazilians "to manage, own, and profit from their digital footprint," according to RestOfWorld.org — "the first such nationwide initiative in the world."
The government says it's partnering with California-based data valuation/monetization firm DrumWave to create "data savings account" to "transform data into economic assets, with potential for monetization and participation in the benefits generated by investing in technologies such as AI LLMs." But all based on "conscious and authorized use of personal information." RestOfWorld reports: Today, "people get nothing from the data they share," Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of the Own Your Data Foundation and board adviser for DrumWave, told Rest of World. "Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their data...." After a user accepts a company's offer on their data, payment is cashed in the data wallet, and can be immediately moved to a bank account. The project will be "a correction in the historical imbalance of the digital economy," said Kaiser. Through data monetization, the personal data that companies aggregate, classify, and filter to inform many aspects of their operations will become an asset for those providing the data...
Brazil's project stands out because it brings the private sector and the government together, "so it has a better chance of catching on," said Kaiser. In 2023, Brazil's Congress drafted a bill that classifies data as personal property. The country's current data protection law classifies data as a personal, inalienable right. The new legislation gives people full rights over their personal data — especially data created "through use and access of online platforms, apps, marketplaces, sites and devices of any kind connected to the web." The bill seeks to ensure companies offer their clients benefits and financial rewards, including payment as "compensation for the collecting, processing or sharing of data." It has garnered bipartisan support, and is currently being evaluated in Congress...
If approved, the bill will allow companies to collect data more quickly and precisely, while giving users more clarity over how their data will be used, according to Antonielle Freitas, data protection officer at Viseu Advogados, a law firm that specializes in digital and consumer laws. As data collection becomes centralized through regulated data brokers, the government can benefit by paying the public to gather anonymized, large-scale data, Freitas told Rest of World. These databases are the basis for more personalized public services, especially in sectors such as health care, urban transportation, public security, and education, she said.
This first pilot program involves "a small group of Brazilians who will use data wallets for payroll loans," according to the article — although Pedro Bastos, a researcher at Data Privacy Brazil, sees downsides. "Once you treat data as an economic asset, you are subverting the logic behind the protection of personal data," he told RestOfWorld. The data ecosystem "will no longer be defined by who can create more trust and integrity in their relationships, but instead, it will be defined by who's the richest."
Thanks to Slashdot reader applique for sharing the news.
The government says it's partnering with California-based data valuation/monetization firm DrumWave to create "data savings account" to "transform data into economic assets, with potential for monetization and participation in the benefits generated by investing in technologies such as AI LLMs." But all based on "conscious and authorized use of personal information." RestOfWorld reports: Today, "people get nothing from the data they share," Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of the Own Your Data Foundation and board adviser for DrumWave, told Rest of World. "Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their data...." After a user accepts a company's offer on their data, payment is cashed in the data wallet, and can be immediately moved to a bank account. The project will be "a correction in the historical imbalance of the digital economy," said Kaiser. Through data monetization, the personal data that companies aggregate, classify, and filter to inform many aspects of their operations will become an asset for those providing the data...
Brazil's project stands out because it brings the private sector and the government together, "so it has a better chance of catching on," said Kaiser. In 2023, Brazil's Congress drafted a bill that classifies data as personal property. The country's current data protection law classifies data as a personal, inalienable right. The new legislation gives people full rights over their personal data — especially data created "through use and access of online platforms, apps, marketplaces, sites and devices of any kind connected to the web." The bill seeks to ensure companies offer their clients benefits and financial rewards, including payment as "compensation for the collecting, processing or sharing of data." It has garnered bipartisan support, and is currently being evaluated in Congress...
If approved, the bill will allow companies to collect data more quickly and precisely, while giving users more clarity over how their data will be used, according to Antonielle Freitas, data protection officer at Viseu Advogados, a law firm that specializes in digital and consumer laws. As data collection becomes centralized through regulated data brokers, the government can benefit by paying the public to gather anonymized, large-scale data, Freitas told Rest of World. These databases are the basis for more personalized public services, especially in sectors such as health care, urban transportation, public security, and education, she said.
This first pilot program involves "a small group of Brazilians who will use data wallets for payroll loans," according to the article — although Pedro Bastos, a researcher at Data Privacy Brazil, sees downsides. "Once you treat data as an economic asset, you are subverting the logic behind the protection of personal data," he told RestOfWorld. The data ecosystem "will no longer be defined by who can create more trust and integrity in their relationships, but instead, it will be defined by who's the richest."
Thanks to Slashdot reader applique for sharing the news.
Great (Score:3)
Finally I can make money from all the data showing I'm not worth anything.
Re: (Score:2)
You'll be lucky if you make 33 cents a month with that IMHO.
Doesn't seem good (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Or maybe they're planning to charge money for what various companies have been taking as "free for use".
Re: (Score:2)
Old and busted: Losing your job to H1B.
New hotness: Losing your job to AI.
People need the rights to there own IP and no eula (Score:4, Informative)
People need the rights to there own IP and no eula to take them away.
Here's what's going to happen. (Score:4, Interesting)
One data broker is going to scrape all that data and sell it on to others at no benefit to the data owners.
We should be building digital identities and placeholder (*) apps instead, making data safety and privacy the default, not the other way around.
(*) - apps that don't extract data from our devices. They would connect to our data store, use it to fill in the placeholders, do calculations locally but our data would never leave the device.
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making data safety and privacy the default, not the other way around.
Yes, but it's already hard to convince legislators and the general public of the necessity. People still cling to the "I have nothing to hide" mentality (which may be true, but they have plenty worth protecting).
But once personal data becomes an economic asset with the ability to earn a little with it, convincing people to value their privacy will be even harder. And legislators will use a monetization scheme as an excuse to loosen up privacy laws.
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We should be building digital identities and placeholder (*) apps instead, making data safety and privacy the default
Is this another reference to Fall; or Dodge in Hell?
2 in one day feels weird
I say take it further. Have an identity proxy that specifically *generates random noise whilst on the net, rendering this abusive business model useless.
*Oddly also something covered in the book. I need to read it again.
Is an interesting idea (Score:2)
Sounds near impossible to manage though, and there will always be a "personal data black market." Also, I thought the "free services" were what we were already being paid with in exchange for our data. Not that I like that arrangement, but will likely be the push-back angle from the big content feeds.