Report by Stefaan Verhulst, Adam Zable, Andrew Zahuranec, Begoña Glez. Otero, and Sara Marcucci: “…Digital Self-Determination (DSD) provides a governance foundation for earning and maintaining that social license. In practice, this means enabling affected individuals and communities to express their expectations and preferences and to influence the conditions under which data is governed and reused. DSD can therefore help data spaces develop beyond trusted technical infrastructures into trusted social institutions.
While DSD has gained traction as a guiding principle, practical approaches for embedding it into the governance of digital systems and institutions remain limited.
The Roadmap for Digital Self-Determination in Data Spaces, developed with the support of the Swiss Federal Administration, addresses this broader implementation gap through the specific context of data spaces. The roadmap is available HERE.
Four Phases and Six Tools
The roadmap operationalizes Digital Self-Determination through four phases and six tools.
- Establish governance foundations that embed agency
- The Assessment for Data Space Governance helps operators evaluate data governance readiness and identify strengths, gaps, and priorities.
- The Guidance on Costs for DSD Implementation in a Data Space helps identify the organizational, legal, technical, and financial resources needed to sustain participation, enforcement, transparency, redress, and review.
- Enable communities to express expectations, interests, and preferences
- The Guidance on Public Engagement Mechanism Selection helps practitioners choose among informational, consultative, deliberative, and collaborative approaches suited to different contexts.
- Translate expectations and preferences into operational arrangements
- The List of Governance Instruments in Data Spaces maps the legal, organizational, technical, and procedural mechanisms available for this work.
- The Model Swiss Data Sharing Agreement with DSD Clauses shows how DSD commitments can be incorporated into binding provisions concerning purpose, use, transparency, accountability, safeguards, and adaptation .
- Assess whether DSD arrangements continue to work over time
- The Options for Stress Testing Digital Self-Determination provides methods for assessing whether data space governance remains effective, fair, transparent, and supportive of meaningful control as conditions change, including expanded data reuse, security incidents, coordination failures, and disputes over authorization or withdrawal…(More)”.
