Consumer Agency in Modern Data Sharing Ecosystems

Mathew Mytka

Mathew Mytka

Moral Imagineer

Meaningful agency and exercising it in consumer data sharing experiences is a function of control and value appropriation.

There is a much public discussion on giving people control and ownership of their personal data. This is happening globally. Across jurisdictions. GDPR, Open Banking, Consumer Data Right, Financial Data Exchange, California Consumer Privacy Act, MyData, FB being grilled in congress, TED talks…the list goes on.

The terms, control and ownership, are being thrown about more frequently.


But how do you give people control in these data sharing experiences and contexts? How do you empower them in valuable, meaningful and engaging ways? What does this even mean and why does it matter?

Well, I’ll aim to help you answer these questions and more in this blog over time. It’s informed by my work on data sharing initiatives globally.


One of the things I’ve consistently observed is the decoupling of control with value. People can’t have control and effectively exercise their agency if they cannot appropriate the value of an interaction. Consent based sharing, sign up, on-boarding or otherwise.

Exercising agency is deeply connected to power and the ability to influence outcomes

Although the insights I share in this post (and the video below) are focused on a specific jurisdiction, the perspective is agnostic. The content in the video should encourage you to start thinking more deeply about these topics and translate this thinking into action.


I’ll aim to write some more posts on consumer control and agency to:

  • Help you hone your perspective on consumer control in the context of data sharing ecosystems
  • Deepen your understanding of the nuances related to people having control and exercising their agency when it comes to personal data
  • Deepen your understanding of the motivational forces that might encourage or inhibit individuals from actively sharing their data, and
  • Support you in executing a strategy, series of tactics and focused metrics to help design more effective data sharing experiences quickly

So, here’s an a video (15min) on a topic I’ll no doubt write more about. It’s based on a presentation from a CX Workshop on control for the Consumer Data Standards work I was a subject matter expert for with Data61 in 2019.

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