GIVE US OWNERSHIP OF OUR DATA FOOTPRINT

Every day, tech companies harvest everything about us: what we click on, what we watch, where we go, who we communicate with. This data is one of the most profitable resources on Earth. Tech companies and online data brokers didn't build that resource: we did. Every data point is a reflection and result of of our own behaviour, our own attention, our own lives, and right now, we have no say in how it's used, no visibility into who's buying it, and no share of the billions it generates.

Andy Burnham has scrapped the national digital ID scheme - proof that when a data grab is unpopular enough, government will back down. But the online age-verification and surveillance software that will scan every message and photo on our phones will remain fully in place, while the companies actually harvesting and monetising our personal data face no equivalent scrutiny. We're still being asked to prove who we are to platforms, while those platforms are never asked to prove what they're doing with our data, or share the profit they’re making out of us.

Give every citizen a statutory property right over their own data, using laws modelled on the kind of protection Denmark has already introduced to protect people's likeness from AI deepfakes. Any company that wants to use, sell, or profit from our data should need our permission, every time, and should have to pay us ever time for the use of that data.

Citizens get paid. Citizens get control back. The exact mechanism that gets the money to you is a detail to be refined but not a reason to wait. A national fund paying an annual dividend is one option, as are a direct licensing fee per company, a data trust that negotiates on your behalf, or a hybrid of all three. The principle remains the same: nobody profits from your data without your permission, and nobody profits from it without you seeing some of the money.

New Job Creation. This will require the creation of a new, dedicated regulator - an Ofcom for our data, which will create a new jobs and put new guardrails around an industry hugely resistant to regulation. This body must have real powers to audit companies, enforce licensing, and hold data pirates accountable when they take without asking or profit without paying.

When - not if - your data is stolen - the data brokers and companies responsible for keeping it safe must be forced to financially compensate every individual whose data was compromised. Right now, when a company loses your data to hackers or unscrupulous brokers, you bear the risk, the cost and the fallout. That has to change. 

Big tech companies have grown richer than most countries, using data most people didn't know they were giving away and never agreed to sell. If a new Prime Minister can find the will to scrap one unpopular data scheme, he can find the will to back this one too.

Big Tech and data brokers have turned consumers and customers into product, and UK citizens deserve something that returns us to feeling as if we are worth our government investing in us, not bleeding us dry. In a digitally-driven world that evolves at breakneck speed, we need a modicum of control and choice again, and a system of permissions and compensation that actually pays us some respects, plus a flow of passive income, may represent a few steps in that hopeful and fair direction. In addition, an entire regulatory body - and therefore thousands of jobs - will need to be created to make this idea work.