IGF 2020 Pre-Event #64 Sharing of personal data during pandemic

Information

Session

Time:

Thursday, 5 November, 2020 - 13:50 to 15:20 UTC

Room:

Room Poland II

About this Session:

During the session the results of the new empirical study on sharing of private data will be discussed with invited guests, including academics and public policy specialists. Apart from the results of our study, in the second part of the discussion we will invite experts to present results of the studies on the effectiveness of behavioral tools in public policy, with a special focus on applications that make use of personal data.

Polish Economic Institute

Organization's Website:

https://pie.net.pl/

Description:

This session will consist of 2 parts:

In the first part, we will be joined by the invited experts - academics and policy specialists - to discuss the results of our latest survey testing the understanding of and willingness to share private data with public institutions.

The survey has been conducted in late October 2020 as part of research initiated by the Polish Economic Institute to investigate the Poles’ self-interested and other-regarding motivations for sharing of personal data (e.g. medical records, energy consumption, localization).

Broad access to personal data has been recognized as an important factor in developing better public services for quite some time. The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified this need, showing the benefits of personal data sharing in contact tracing and other public health initiatives. There are other emerging concepts utilizing the development of secure and trusted data space. Still, evidence on what can motivate and/or prevent people from sharing their data is scarce.

In the second part of the session, we will therefore invite our panelists to explore ways to encourage public authorities to make effective use of data sharing and the public to reveal their data in an informed and safe manner to further the goals of public policy. A special focus will be given to mobile applications that make use of personal data.

Moderator: Ignacy Święcicki, Head of the Digital Economy Team, Polish Economic Institute

Speakers:

Patrik Pavlovsky, Behavioral Research &Innovation Consultant at the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic
Jaana Sinipuro, Project Director, IHAN - Human driven data economy, SITRA, Finland
Paweł Śliwowski, Head of strategy team, Polish Economic Institute
Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer, GovLab, New York University

Online moderator: Jacek Grzeszak, Polish Economic Institute

Report

1. Key Policy Questions and related issues:

What are the public policy areas that can benefit from increased personal data sharing?

What are people’s motivations and constraints sharing their data? What behavioural factors should be taken into account in encouraging personal data sharing?

Why it is important to differentiate between people’s consent to the use of already collected data and collection of new data

2. Summary of Issues Discussed:

The session stared with issues raised in two presentations of empirical data concerning people’s attitudes to data sharing, their security concerns, and actual practices of sharing data. The first presentation summarised a survey conducted by the Polish Economic Institute to investigate Poles’ self-interested and other-regarding motivations for sharing of personal data (e.g. medical records, energy consumption, localization). Surprisingly enough, data sharing preferences turned out to be similar (around 40%) irrespective of whether the benefit was public or private. An interesting result was high level of indecisiveness among Poles as to whether they would or would not share their data. Results of a similar survey conducted by Finnish Sitra among the Finns, Germans, French and Dutch showed higher level of preference for data sharing but significant differences were identified between them. Some reasons explaining these differences were discussed.

A large untapped potential to take advantage of data sharing in the public sector was also mentioned. Of particular importance might be the assessment of the impact of the pandemic on various areas of economic and social life, e.g. remote work and education, tele medicine, mental health and well-being. An important distinction was made between people’s consent to re-use of already collected data and their preference for or against collection of new data.

Another point was raised about the experience of the pandemic serving as the biggest natural experiment ever where various way of tackling the challenges are being tested. Speakers agreed that behavioural sciences are of immense importance in communicating the problems at stake with the public, in advising people how to behave, and in understanding what affects their compliance with the rules. Further development of knowledge in this area will be of great importance to policy makers in better crisis management and beyond the immediate context of the pandemic.

3. Key Takeaways:

It will be important for high-level policy decision makers to understand that there is a variety of factors and contexts which determine people’s attitudes to data sharing. It is not merely age, education and professional experience differences that play a role. The willingness to share data depends on the level of trust people have for the public authorities and the latter is determined by clarity of information conveyed by the government to the public. Misinformation is not only a barrier in compliance but it also undermines channels of communication with the public, rendering people distrustful of their authorities. As we heard from one of our panelists, in America public libararies are the only government-funded institutions respected and trusted by most people, which is why they were chosen as location for workshops improving data literacy. Transparency of information and visibility of evidence confirming what is being communicated is of crucial importance for bringing people on board with the public policy goals.

A key challenge for policy makers in building trust in the right conduct in their use of private data is to use it ethically and only for the purpose for which the data is collected. Transparency is another key requirement in this area.

4. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

What policy sector(s) does this fall under? (leave blank if not sure):

Overarching governance issues

Issue and Recommendation:

More empirical research – such as the surveys discussed in the session - supported by social capital and network analysis as well as behavioural insights promises to be the way forward to identify and use the potential of data sharing. International co-operation in gathering of empirical data (like the research conducted by Sitra) and exchange of knowledge and best practices between research centres and governmental agencies is needed. Local/cultural context needs to be understood before lessons from other countries are implemented: the same vocabulary might have different connotations across cultural contexts, and it is crucial to understand how different communities are affected by similar messages. Improving data literacy and understanding of data management both among policy makers and society is a basic requirement for any development in the large-scale public use of private data.

Who should take it?:

Research institutions in cooperation with the administration.

5. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

Initiative:

There are many emerging concepts utilizing the development of secure and trusted data space: data trusts, data collaboratives and cooperatives, data stewards which we did not cover in detail in the session. They are nonetheless closely related to the issues we raised as they provide the technical and practical solution to the otherwise abstract problems entailed in the use of data sharing and storing.

6. Final Speakers:

Moderator: Ignacy Święcicki, Head of the Digital Economy Team, Polish Economic Institute

Speakers:

Patrik Pavlovsky, Behavioral Research &Innovation Consultant at the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic
Jaana Sinipuro, Project Director, IHAN - Human driven data economy, SITRA, Finland
Paweł Śliwowski, Head of strategy team, Polish Economic Institute
Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer, GovLab, New York University

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

Both surveys discussed in the session analysed gender differences in attitudes to data sharing and practices of revealing private information to external entities. The differences were shown in the presentation of the survey results.

Our research team and the panel were gender-balanced.

8. Session Outputs:

European Wereables Survey conducted by SITRA (one of the two studies discussed in the first part of the discussion): https://www.sitra.fi/en/publications/european-wearables-survey/

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IGF 2020 Pre-Event #64 Sharing of personal data during pandemic

Information