Data portability

Data portability is a concept to protect users from having their data stored in "silos" or "walled gardens" that are incompatible with one another, i.e. closed platforms, thus subjecting them to vendor lock-in and making the creation of data backups or moving accounts between services difficult. Data portability requires common technical standards to facilitate the transfer from one data controller to another, such as the ability to export user data into a user-accessible local file, thus promoting interoperability, as well as facilitate searchability with sophisticated tools such as grep. Data portability applies to personal data. It involves access to the personal data without implying data ownership per se. At the global level there are proponents who see the protection of digital data as a human right. Thus, in an emerging civil society draft declaration, one finds mention of the following concepts and statutes: Right to Privacy on the Internet, Right to Digital Data Protection, Rights to Consumer Protection on the Internet – United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection. At the regional level there are at least three main jurisdictions where data rights are seen differently: China and India, the United States and the European Union. In the latter, personal data was given special protection under the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR thus became the fifth of the 24 types of legislation listed in Annex 1 Table of existing and proposed European Directives and Regulations in relation to data. Personal data are the basis for behavioral advertising, and early in the 21st century their value began to grow exponentially, at least as measured in the market capitalization of the major platforms holding personal data on their respective users. European Union regulators reacted to this perceived power imbalance between platforms and users, although much still hinges on the terms of consent given by users to the platforms.