A community centre sets its own rules for its data
An urban Indigenous organisation explains how it governs data without legal power over it, as a steward and not an owner.
Picture made for ABUREAU.
In Stanford Social Innovation Review, staff of the Tucson Indian Center describe how they govern the data they hold about their community. They separate two things: a nation's legal authority over its data, which the centre does not have, and data governance, the rules and accountability an organisation can set for itself.
An advisory council shapes the questions, methods and collection decisions. Its test is whether knowledge will produce collective benefit for the community. The authors write that the council has turned down a county partner whose handling of Native data it judged disrespectful. They call the centre a steward, and say the long-term aim is to return data to Tribal nations where possible.
The article draws on the CARE Principles, which stress collective benefit and the community's authority to control. It also notes that about 71% of American Indian and Alaska Native people live in urban areas, where few legal routes exist for such control.
For people who own or use data, the lesson is that the people a dataset describes can hold a say in its use even when the law gives them none. Buyers and partners should expect to be asked, and a record of who agreed to what is part of the data's worth.
