How much is your data worth?
Year 9 to 12 students, parents, and teachers
‘People, not companies, should have rights to their data, and people, not companies, should be able to sell it as they see fit.’ Jones and Tonetti (2019).
Whenever you use Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook, any of Google’s services, Amazon, etc. these companies harvest the data generated for free and then sell it to advertisers. It is a lucrative business model creating some of the wealthiest companies on the planet, but how much is your actual personal data worth?
Perhaps it is easiest to show this by example: your bank account PIN has value. By selecting “debit” instead of “credit” on a Point of Sale device, you “sell” your PIN. You make the choice to share your personal information, and in return, the merchant saves about 40 cents in processing fees. This option was completely voluntary and cost you nothing. Therefore, your PIN is worth 40 cents in that transaction! It doesn’t stop there, of course, because the choice you made to use debit instead of the credit is collected and on-sold. Another little data dot making up your valuable digital footprint. Sheer market forces dictate value, e.g. the average price of a credit or debit card with CVV and bank info on the dark web is $15.
Economy professors Jones and Tonetti investigated three scenarios—1) companies own all the data, 2) consumers own all their data, and 3) all data sharing was banned. The first scenario is like what we have today. Companies are free to collect data and sell it, often at the cost of our personal privacy. In the second scenario, they found that if data creators (us) owned our own data, the balance between privacy and economic efficiency was near optimal. And in Scenario 3, economic activity became stifled.
Much research is going on today in how to design a marketplace through which individual consumers can preserve and sell their data.
“I think everyone should have control over how their information is used.” Mark Zuckerberg, founder of FaceBook and co-owner of Instagram and WhatsApp
Source: Non-rivalary and the economics of data
Question: What if you could get money for your data? What personal information would you be willing to sell and what would you like to keep private?
Casper Pieters PhD Dip Ed is an author and educator who uses adventure narratives to enliven the ICT curriculum for young people. www.casperpieters.com
