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Stefaan Verhulst in Stanford Social Innovation Review: Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age

Andrew Young — February 15, 2017

Yesterday, Stanford Social Innovation Review published a piece from Network chief of research Stefaan Verhulst on a new form of “Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age.” The piece, which builds on a talk given by Verhulst at TEDx MidAtlantic and the GovLab’s recently launched DataCollaboratives.org website, discusses the need for a new conception of data responsibility in our age of data-driven problem-solving (and data-driven risks).

After proposing a conception of Data Responsibility comprising a duty to share, a duty to protect and a duty to act, Verhulst offers four immediate steps to enable the necessary culture shift within companies, governments and other data-holding entities:

  1. Data holders should issue a public commitment to data responsibility so that it becomes the default—an expected, standard behavior within organizations.
  2. Organizations should hire data stewards to determine what and when to share, and how to protect and act on data.
  3. We must develop a data responsibility decision tree to assess the value and risk of corporate data along the data lifecycle.
  4. Above all, we need a data responsibility movement; it is time to demand data responsibility to ensure data improves and safeguards people’s lives.

Read more here.