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Martani A, Geneviève LD, Elger B, Wangmo T. 'It’s not something you can take in your hands'. Swiss experts’ perspectives on health data ownership: an interview-based study. BMJ Open 2021. [PMCID: PMC8039276 DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022] Open
Abstract
ObjectivesThe evolution of healthcare and biomedical research into data-rich fields has raised several questions concerning data ownership. In this paper, we aimed to analyse the perspectives of Swiss experts on the topic of health data ownership and control.DesignIn our qualitative study, we selected participants through purposive and snowball sampling. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and then analysed thematically.SettingSemi-structured interviews were conducted in person, via phone or online.ParticipantsWe interviewed 48 experts (researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders) of the Swiss health-data framework.ResultsWe identified different themes linked to data ownership. These include: (1) the data owner: data-subjects versus data-processors; (2) uncertainty about data ownership; (3) labour as a justification for data ownership and (4) the market value of data. Our results suggest that experts from Switzerland are still divided about who should be the data owner and also about what ownership would exactly mean. There is ambivalence between the willingness to acknowledge patients as the data owners and the fact that the effort made by data-processors (eg, researchers) to collect and manage the data entitles them to assert ownership claims towards the data themselves. Altogether, a tendency to speak about data in market terms also emerged.ConclusionsThe development of a satisfactory account of data ownership as a concept to organise the relationship between data-subjects, data-processors and data themselves is an important endeavour for Switzerland and other countries who are developing data governance in the healthcare and research domains. Setting clearer rules on who owns data and on what ownership exactly entails would be important. If this proves unfeasible, the idea that health data cannot truly belong to anyone could be promoted. However, this will not be easy, as data are seen as an asset to control and profit from.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Martani
- Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | | | - Bernice Elger
- Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- University Center of Legal Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Tenzin Wangmo
- Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
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Abstract
AbstractIn discourses on digitization and the data economy, it is often claimed that data subjects shall be owners of their data. In this paper, we provide a problem diagnosis for such calls for data ownership: a large variety of demands are discussed under this heading. It thus becomes challenging to specify what—if anything—unites them. We identify four conceptual dimensions of calls for data ownership and argue that these help to systematize and to compare different positions. In view of this pluralism of data ownership claims, we introduce, spell out and defend a constructive interpretative proposal: claims for data ownership are charitably understood as attempts to call for the redistribution of material resources and the socio-cultural recognition of data subjects. We argue that as one consequence of this reading, it misses the point to reject claims for data ownership on the grounds that property in data does not exist. Instead, data ownership brings to attention a claim to renegotiate such aspects of the status quo.
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