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GDPR, Data Portability and Data About Multiple People

Exploring rights to data portability when data describes more than one person

May 2018

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In collaboration with the Open Data Institute, IF researched how the right to data portability might work in cases where the data being ‘ported’ is about multiple people.

Data portability represents an opportunity for new products and services, but also raises some difficult questions – questions we don’t think companies or governments are thinking about deeply enough yet. This offers an opportunity for those who do to develop a competitive advantage.

As part of our research, we developed a series of scenarios to explore data portability and then tested prototypes with people living in multigenerational households in the UK. The prototypes aimed to provoke conversation, rather than provide definitive solutions or services.

The aim of our work was to learn the following:

This report contains the research findings and prototypes, which are grouped into themes. It includes recommendations on to how to design for data portability in ways that respect the rights of groups and individuals. We also raise some questions for policy-makers.