Data protection for the common good: developing a framework for a data protection-focused data commons

In our data-driven society, personal data are increasingly being collected and processed by sizeable and international companies. While data protection laws and privacy technologies attempt to limit the impact of data breaches and privacy scandals, they rely on individuals having a detailed understanding of the available recourse, resulting in the responsibilisation of data protection. To better protect individual autonomy over personal data, we posit that a data protection-focused data commons framework can be developed to encourage co-creating data protection solutions, rebalancing power between data subjects and controllers. Conducting interviews with commons experts, we aim to better understand how data protection were considered in existing commons and how privacy principles can be better applied. Incorporating trust, multidisciplinary knowledge, and public participation, a data protection-focused data commons can represent a community network of norms and values, enabling the protection of personal data by considering data protection for the common good.