The debate over data ownership is an ongoing one between data subjects and big data holders. Recently, the debate has evolved in favor of strengthening data subjects’ rights through data portability instead of ownership. Data portability allows data subjects to freely transfer and control their data, facilitating the flow of data between companies.
Records, such as transportation logs, are personal data, and the individual is the ‘data subject’. Data has no physical form and can be easily copied and reused. When this data is aggregated and processed in large quantities, it becomes big data, and companies that process it are called big data holders. Big data in the industrial sector has economic value because it can be utilized for specific purposes. For example, by analyzing traffic usage history data, it is possible to predict traffic flow at certain times of the day and build an efficient transportation system based on it. This is an important resource for urban planning and transportation management.
Since data is a commodity, there is a debate about who should own it. There are two views of ownership: the view of the big data holder and the view of the information subject. The former argues that giving ownership to the big data holder makes it easier to create and distribute big data, which in turn stimulates data-related industries. For example, a company that owns traffic data can process it in various ways to develop new transportation solutions and sell it to other companies or public organizations. The latter view argues that it is unfair for wealth to be concentrated in the hands of big data holders when it is the individuals who produce the information, and that they should be paid for it. This view emphasizes fairness in that the value of the data should also belong to the individuals who originally provided it.
Recently, the discussion has shifted from who owns the data to the right to data portability as a way to access data. In Korea, the right to data portability, rather than ownership, has been established in law to strengthen data subjects’ right to self-determination of personal information. The right to data portability is the right of a data subject to request the data holder to transfer the data to the data subject or a designated third party free of charge. However, this does not apply to personal data that has been collected, analyzed, and processed by a big data holder to create new value. Even before the law was enacted, there were services that allowed you to move your direct deposit items between banks. This was partially implemented in accordance with interbank agreements. With the introduction of the right to data portability, the scope of data subjects’ autonomous control and management has been expanded to include aspects of their behavior, such as their shopping history. This gives individuals more visibility into how their data is being used and allows them to take control of their data utilization by transferring it to other service providers if necessary.
By legislating the right to data portability, companies can reduce the creation and transaction costs of data. Creation costs are the costs of developing data within an organization, which can be reduced by replicating and reusing transferred data rather than collecting data on their own. Transaction costs are costs incurred in transactions between economic entities, such as signing contracts or resolving disputes. However, with the enactment of the right to data portability, companies that receive data from data subjects can reduce costs by receiving data from companies that previously held the data. This will facilitate sharing and distribution among companies and revitalize related industries. In particular, SMEs and startups will have the opportunity to reduce the difficulty of initial data collection and quickly enter the market by utilizing existing data.
On the other hand, there is also a concern that if data subjects move their data to companies with high security credibility and many benefits for providing data, it may lead to data concentration and reduce data sharing and distribution. For new companies with small amounts of data, collecting data through transactions with existing companies is an efficient way to reduce data creation costs. However, if existing companies with concentrated data are unwilling to share their aggregated and processed data, it may be difficult for new companies to enter the market, leading to increased monopolization. This in turn can hinder the dynamism of the data economy, and legal and institutional mechanisms are needed to ensure fair utilization of data. For example, there should be clear guidelines for data access and use and policies to ensure fair trade.
