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Kurteva, Anelia and Domingue, John
(2024).
Abstract
Recent artificial intelligence (AI) advancements in the fields of generative AI and hyper-automation in the Internet of Things (IoT) have turned data into a valuable highly sought-after asset and an economical resource for the ever-growing service digitization. Fields such as smart cities, e-commerce and finance now often integrate AI to improve and optimise online services, which requires large volumes of diverse high-quality data. Most of the data that is generated, related and used by humans for AI in any of these domains can be categorised as personal. The access to it, its processing and sharing for different purposes between different software agents, humans and organisations, if not governed and legally compliant, can jeopardise individuals’ privacy and sovereignty both online and offline. Through the years, several eminent data misuse cases have shown that the current centralised digital data ecosystem is easily exploitable and that there is a lack of transparency and accountability along the data supply chain. Individuals have long ago lost control over their data due to vendor lock-ins and their privacy is often violated. The growing number of fines issued to numerous organisations in response to violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by misusing individual’s personal data, further confirm this. A new paradigm shift towards decentralisation of the Web has emerged as a solution. However, implementing data and privacy governance in a decentralised setting poses new technical and organisational challenges that are currently being investigated and a standard solution is yet to be established. Further, there is a lack of tools aimed at assisting and guiding individuals in managing their decentralised data. In this paper, we propose the development of a more human-centered approach for building trusted self-sovereign decentralised spaces for personal data governance based on combining semantics with privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) and the utilisation of graphical visualisations. We present the main building blocks of the proposed approach with the main goal to foster further discussion and collaboration between the Semantic Web, Privacy, Decentralisation, Human-Computer Interaction and Legal communities.
Plain Language Summary
Proposes techniques to increase data privacy and trust for users. Also how data can be used in a number of settings