I’m heading into a meeting this afternoon to talk about the DataPortability Project with a web site policy expert. Data portability policy as disclosure is a nice and needed start. Looking ahead, what might the data portability movement produce over the next year or two? Not in any order…
A Portability Gallery. Examples of data portability in action. Less about cautionary tales and more showing what can happen for people, groups and businesses when it works.
A Doctrine. The portability policy model is descriptive. This would be prescriptive. A positive statement using the language of “must” and “should” and “rights” and “good.”
An Issue for the 2012 federal and state election cycle. “Dear Candidate, where do you stand on…”
An academic conference on defining the rights of people over their own data, perhaps defining new rights not extant in current law.
A Portability Policy Bootstrap Consulting Methodology. A project plan that brings the right stakeholders together to learn about the portability issues, to assign research into existing portability practices, to organize and present the results internally, to activate the procedures needed to keep the results fresh, to create processes for engaging with external stakeholders on data portability matters, and to publish the results inside and outside the organization.
A Portability Policy Consulting Association. Members share their best practices for helping companies adopt, improve, and troubleshoot portability policies and practices.
A Portability Policy Audit Methodology. Checklists, procedures, and measures of completeness/quality when assessing whether a portability policy is complete, in plain language, and true.
A Portability Auditor Association. Members share their own best practices for data portability policy audits, define standards for certification, discuss best ways to market portability policy audits as parts of their larger financial/legal/IT compliance service portfolio.
Data Portability Audit Software. To help auditors validate compliance with company policy.
DataPortability.gov. The US government’s guide to data portability for citizens, agencies and contractors. I could see pointers to citizen tools, education, and feedback. Links to agency data portability policies and action pages.
Data Portability Ombudsman Services. Like the Better Business Bureau meets GetSatisfaction. Company-sponsored customer dispute resolution.
Model Language for API Terms of Service. Similar to the customer-facing policy, these boilerplate choices would spell out the data portability obligations of service partners who use your customers’ data.
Watchdog Network. Volunteers holding sites accountable, naming names, talking to the press, in the spirit of privacy and environmental activists. Let My Data Go!
Crisis network. Rapid intervention when something bad happens. A site closes, threatening to lose a million users’ data. A site ejects a user and the user needs an ombudsman. A sites data portability policy no longer reflects what they really do.
A Data Portability Media Group. A listserv of bloggers, analysts and reporters who’ve written about data portability and who cover portability issues.
A Speakers Bureau. From neighborhood meetups and chamber meetings to industry conferences and college lectures, a place to find speakers.
Hmmm. Catchy but very ambitious.
What about reality? What about resources?
Let’s pick that up in part 2 next month.
If you can help me get my hands on my data, call me at +1-510-343-5664, Skype me, follow @SkypeJournal and @evanwolf. Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.
About Phil Wolff