Open Your Own Data - Creating Individual High Value for Little People from Big Data

The Open Data movement signifies availability and access to data as a prerequisite for the exercise of individual democratic rights. Data are now Big Data with large numbers of attributes, transactions, relationships, complexities, and individuals. Government data are typically viewed as aggregate data. However, plenty of examples show that your individual data is required for the administration and planning of your tax, your pension, your health etc.

Individuals using electronic devices and applications leave electronic traces. When using the World Wide Web, your phone, or applications you leave traces. Data in the form of electronic traces are also fruitful for commercial companies because profiling based upon the detailed registration of individual behaviour can be used to target the right product or service to the right customer. Profiling can remarkably improve the success of invitations from a company to individuals. Seemingly, the individual also benefits by only being disturbed by offers containing more relevant information. The issue of privacy and confidentiality is discussed and high-level precautions are implemented in order not to disclose individual data to a third party. However, the individual data should be available to the individual. To open and own your own data should be the general rule in all areas.

Big Data implies an information asymmetry that disfavours the individual. When individual data are not available to the individual, the individual's decision making is based on insufficient data. As an example your phone company knows precisely your behaviour regarding phone conversations, text messages, and data traffic. If you had your individual data - "know yourself" - you could generate more individual value when approaching a competing phone company. With full availability of individual data and development of capable software applications and agents the individual can gain the rightful ownership and effectively act in the individual's own interest.