Towards ethical guidelines for fair data economy – thematic analysis of values of Europeans

Abstract

<p>Data has become a modern commodity and a resource that is produced,<br />shared and consumed in increasing amounts. This development has led to creation<br />of data economy ecosystems. These economies are complex socio-technical<br />systems, where the role of individuals as consumers and producers of data is vital.<br />Although recent events in existing data economies have raised awareness of value<br />of the personal data, there is very little research done about individuals and their<br />needs in these ecosystems.<br />In this paper individuals and their needs are researched in context of fair data<br />economy – an on-going project that aims to develop an ethical European data<br />economy that is fair to all of its actors. To create ethical governance guidelines,<br />values of European individuals are researched by means of thematic analysis<br />from 4,792 answers to two open question about fair data economy conducted in<br />Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands. As a result, a value basis for the<br />governance model is formed.<br /></p>