The Role of Governance in Unleashing the Value of Data

Data is increasingly central to economic activity and how we make sense of the world, but it is still not valued in either national or corporate balance sheets. There is no accepted methodology to measure data’s value — value that depends on its usefulness in a particular context, which is framed by individual or societal perspectives, governance rules and regulations, and input from different stakeholders.

In 2018, CIGI’s essay series Data Governance in the Digital Age anticipated some of the data governance issues that have emerged, such as surveillance capitalism and the economics of data, but did not cover data valuation in depth. Building on that foundation, the authors of this new series explore four themes: the current state of global data governance; different perspectives on notions of value; governance frameworks to unleash the value of data; and mechanisms for governance cooperation.

“A brusque upending of many current economic, security and other relationships is coming. It will be neither pleasant nor easy.”

In this opinion, Paul Samson and Horatio M. Morgan write that the ruthless policies soon to emerge from the United States could serve as a critical wake-up call to its friends and neighbours.

“This country’s decades-long economic success has not yet imploded. But there is no time to waste: the moment for transformation is now, with a fire about to be lit beneath us. Our global allies and competitors are already advancing strategies to carve out prosperous and sustainable futures. We must do the same.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are advancing rapidly and spreading around the globe, revolutionizing industries and transforming economies. Amid this surge, the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) centres on harmonizing digital policies and regulations across its Southeast Asian member states and has the potential to play a pivotal role in accelerating AI adoption across the region.

In this opinion, S. Yash Kalash writes that “as the world stands on the cusp of a new technological era, ASEAN’s proactive embrace of AI through DEFA could define the region’s future prosperity. The stakes are high: failure to act risks widening the gap between ASEAN and more technologically advanced regions, potentially leaving member states behind in the global race for innovation.”

CIGI and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office co-hosted the the 7th Annual IP Data & Research Conference on November 5.

Giuseppina D’Agostino delivered the keynote, during which she shared three stories to “really emphasize the importance of IP, the need to make it here, keep it here and commercialize it here. Ultimately, we are always dealing with the same issues of ownership, access, control, which…transcend every new technology.”

A recording is now available — watch it here.

“Hurricanes Helene and Milton left a trail of destruction through the Southeastern United States, one that will take years to overcome. Yet even as communities struggle to rebuild, they face an additional challenge in the form of false narratives and conspiracy theories that threaten to undermine recovery efforts and public safety.”

In this op-ed first published in Canada’s National Observer, Andrew Heffernan discusses the far-reaching and potentially life-threatening harms of disinformation campaigns surrounding climate change and disasters, and the need for “a multi-pronged approach that involves government agencies, media organizations, tech companies and individual citizens” in combatting them.

Amid the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War, the Chinese computer emerged. Its creators — in a race for ingenuity and despite the complexity of encoding the language’s tens of thousands of characters for digital use — achieved both the revolutionary feat of computing non-Latin script and unprecedented typing speeds, accomplishments that continue to shape the devices we use today.

Join Policy Prompt hosts Vass Bednar and Paul Samson for a deep dive into the history of digital technology in China with Thomas S. Mullaney, American sinologist, professor at Stanford University and author of The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age (MIT Press, 2024).

For a chance to win a copy of The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age, tell us in a comment here what you liked about this episode.

“While threats from phishing emails and other kinds of cyberattacks are more of a nuisance with each passing year, there’s a greater worry ahead: quantum computing is universally expected to render our most common data security methods obsolete. The only question is how soon.”

For this explainer, Ian Munroe spoke to experts about the rush to protect sensitive data before “Q Day”: how we should respond, how that response may shape a potentially transformative technology at a pivotal stage of development, and on an international level, the extent to which different countries will be able to protect themselves, and what the gap between the haves and have-nots will mean.

The Digital Policy Hub at CIGI is a collaborative space for emerging scholars and innovative thinkers from the social, natural and applied sciences. Here are the most recent working papers from the summer 2024 cohort of Hub fellows.

Laila Mourad: “Technology, Bodies and Emotions: Researching Gendered Gig Work”

Ori Freiman: “From Central Banks to Governments and Standards: CBDC Governance in Canada”

Follow the links on the Hub webpage to learn more about the Hub scholars and their work!

Nov. 18 – 10:00 a.m. EST (UTC–05:00): Next week the Africa Forum at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA), in collaboration with CIGI, presents a thought-provoking panel discussion on the impact of digital media in the context of recent coups and power shifts across Africa.

Join us for this free virtual event, moderated by BSIA Director Ann Fitz-Gerald, as panellists Nicodemus Minde, Melaine Nsaikila and Halima Ahmed and discussant Abdiasis Issa explore how digital media shapes narratives, empowers voices and potentially reshapes Africa’s political landscape in this transformative era.

Find out more and register here.