In the age of big data and artificial intelligence, personal data have become the black gold of the Twenty-first century. Those who operate them, to begin by the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) derive substantial revenues ($4.7 billion, or 3.6 billion euros in the last quarter for Facebook, with 6.7 billion for Alphabet, the parent company Google). Those who provide the service, that is to say, each of us, derive no benefit. It is from this that the think tank liberal Generation free offers in a report published Thursday, January 25, to reverse the balance of power by allowing citizens to sell their personal data.
The idea is not new, but it seems to be experiencing a resurgence of interest. In the United States, it is in particular defended by the scientist and writer Jaron Lanier, who had exposed in his book Who Owns The Future from 2012. In mid-January, the liberal weekly The Economist made it even account of his work in an article entitled : “Internet businesses should pay for the data that users give them currently gracefully ? “In France, a few days earlier, it is a socialist Julien Dray, who claimed on BFM taxation of GAFA in order to distribute” an endowment, universal, 50 000 euros for each of us, from 18 years of age “…
If Gaspard Koenig, the founder of Generation freedom, sharing with the elected socialist belief that the wealth generated by big data may not be confiscated by a handful of companies, the model of redistribution he proposes is radically different. In contrast to a solution that he deems ” socialist “, ” collectivist “, which is closer to a tax, the project of the think-tank French is based on the reverse on the freedom of individual choice.
“Our data are worth more than the free given to us…
