Consumer generated data. Whose is it?

GDPR says your personal data belongs to you. But does that cover all of the data we generate, is this data set truly portable and can we do with it as we please?

Some ruminations and my Netflix consumption as an example.

General data protection - does it do what it promises on the tin

A lot has been said recently about privacy of data especially in light of GDPR. Yes, we can now withdraw consent and our personal data altogether. Unless one contractually ceded the right to an organization for some data to continue to be mined anonymously. I must admit not to read all the fine print all the time. But it also says that we have the right to retrieve our data and give (or sell) it to another business.

I wanted to ask some questions regarding the consequences of this last aspect. I was reading some articles about Netflix recently (of which I am admittedly an avid consumer and quite happy customer) and was wondering: All this data I “produce” and they mine (with my permission obviously), is this also considered personal data. In other words; is this also information that is part of my identity as a natural identifiable person?

The value of "my" Netflix data

What’s in it for me : Netflix has more than 2000 subsets of viewer category profiles and all those rows you see in your personalized UX are incredibly customized and designed to keep you watching. Their genre codes are more spun out than my geeked-out ITunes library playlists. No complaint so far. Thanks for trying to be as relevant to me as possible. (Even though I wouldn’t mind them pushing my comfort zone from time-to-time.)

Unquestionably all these rows are designed to entice you with on-the-nose content . They are constantly monitored, tested and altered. As each row contains multiple subsets, your interactions with these rows (what you click / explore / ignore) lead to continuous tweaks within them. (PS : This principle extends to the “Trending Now” row as well by the way.)

What else is in it for them : It is safe to assume I have produced a ton of data since I got Netflix back in 2014. All of this information is not only used to make the viewing experience more pleasant; hence increasing loyalty and the company’s immediate bottom line. From this data and the resulting data analysis, Netflix decides on new content to offer as well. It does so based on an amalgamation of all the interaction data and organic viewing behavior and does not rely on the standard reactionary model. (see this recent article in Forbes for more on this + There is also an interesting TedX video embedded that questions the limits of data-drive decision making.) Given the fact that Netflix has done so very successfully, our data is worth quite a bit.

Back to the question of ownership

If we agree that the data is both valuable to me as a consumer as well as to the organization as a for-profit company, can I take it all with me and share it as I please? For example with another provider in order to optimize my experience elsewhere or use it as a bargaining chip or in a trade for credits or gift certificates. If I read GDPR correctly, I should be. I already doled it out to one company, I should be able to choose freely with whom else I share my data. The question is what data is mine exactly? The answer should be: All of it. Right?

Netflix is a pretty straightforward case. But there are numerous other examples of companies whose value is not even necessarily driven by the profitability (current or future) of the services on offer now but by the future potential of the data that they generate, that we all generate. This where it may also be worth to take a look at a short paper titled “Should We Treat Data as Labor? Moving Beyond 'Free'” in which the authors propose to look at all data as the property of those who generate it unless they agree to provide it to firms in exchange for payment. Already exciting food-for-thought, I am especially curious where this may lead. I am not an expert, so if anybody knows to what extend GDRP goes into this direction, I’d love to find out more.