[kictanet] Liberating user data from the platform monopolies?

[Sidney Ochieng]

A bit late to this discussion. I'm surprised that the entirety of this
discussion didn't mention GDPR's data portability requirements or Kenya's
own Access to Information(A2I) act. The mechanisms for this exist though
this data is not necessarily accessible via API. GDPR even explicits says
<https://gdpr-info.eu/art-20-gdpr/> that the data be machine readable and
freely transferable.

GDPR has helped with this in Europe, and it applies to every company that
has data on European citizens no matter where in the world they are, and it
comes with stiff fines for non-compliance. If we look at it locally I'm yet
to find any public entity that is in compliance with any part of the
practical aspects of A2I act, including the CA of whom I've made a couple
of requests that seem to have disappeared into the ether.

Even organisations like Safaricom that have the technical and financial
capicity don't make it clear how to go about getting information from them,
given that for sure they have Europeans on their network I wonder whether
they're GDPR compliant and if that process is accessible to Kenyans.

Listers the A2I was passed in 2016. How many of us have tried to use it to
get information from an entity, public or private? What was the outcome?

On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 at 11:11, John Kieti via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Dear Listers,
>
> Just a random thought. What if the law entitled users to a  periodic (eg.
> quarterly) download of all data collected of them by large platform
> companies (including telcos); and the users could grant file access to the
> competitors as the user migrates? What if it was API-based data access that
> the user could grant to third parties including competitors?
>
> What if there was an automated data depository eg. for telcos; whereby I
> can invoke the right to access all the data the telco holds of me, and I
> proceed to grant the data depository access to my data, automatically
> retrieved from my telco A. That way my data *anonymized or otherwise
> permitted* can be accessible from the depository and aggregated with
> other peoples' to develop services on top of the data layer by third
> parties such as startups, data mining & research services, and even telco B
> which competes as an underdog with telco A.
>
> The assumption would be that the user owns the data held by the
> platform/telco which has already got its head start with appropriating my
> data by collecting it in realtime. It would also be assumed that access to
> my data in the depository is only by licensed entities under stringent
> rules that respect my access permission settings.
>
> What could go wrong with such an approach to user data? What could go well?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>
> --
>
> John Kieti
> Phone: +254-735-764242 // +254-722-764242
> Twitter: @johnKieti <https://twitter.com/johnkieti> // Skype:  jkieti
> Blog: gmeltdown.com <http://www.gmeltdown.com> // LinkedIn:
> https://ke.linkedin.com/in/*kieti* <https://ke.linkedin.com/in/kieti>
>
> The ordinary just won't do
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-- 
Regards,
Sidney

*Twitter:* @princelySid <https://twitter.com/princelySid> | *Web: *
sidneyochieng.co.ke
*Skype: *sidney.ochieng | *Github:* princelySid
<https://github.com/princelySid>
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