March 10, 2022 – As board member of the Institute of Technology for Humanity - Montreal, McCarthy Tétrault partner Charles Morgan participated in a working group on international experts that drafted the report “Data Altruism: Data Serving the General Interest” published in February 2022 by Human Technology Foundation (HTF) and Sopra Steria Next. The detailed report explores the various “success factors” that will help leverage and amplify the societal benefits of the nascent “digital altruism” regime under the EU Data Governance Act.

The report was initiated in response to a November 2020 draft Data Governance Act proposal by the European Commission (EC). The EC proposal’s aim is to "promote the availability of data for use, by increasing trust in data intermediaries and by strengthening data sharing mechanisms across the EU." Within, it proposes "data altruism" as a new way of sharing data. This concept is based, inter alia, on the creation of altruistic data organizations, i.e., trusted, independent, non-profit-making third parties responsible for ensuring in the fullest transparency the collection of data transmitted for purposes of general interest.

The HTF report, “Data Altruism: Data Serving the General Interest,” comprises three parts:

• Part one assesses the scope of this legal creation and its potential. It proposes regulatory avenues and practical actions for the ethical use of data.
• Part two includes an analysis of particularly inspiring ways of sharing data for the development of altruistic data models.
• Part three details operational recommendations to enable the implementation and development of these models and to ensure their truly altruistic character. These recommendations have been designed to be directly exploitable by the various actors concerned.

The result is an in-depth and practical report that puts “flesh on the bones” of this new way of sharing data and to propose practical solutions to help the successful deployment of data altruistic projects.

This is the second time that Charles has collaborated with HTF and an international group of experts on the publication of a research report. In 2020, they released “Technology Governance in a Time of Crisis”: a detailed framework of analysis of the components of effective technological governance in times of crisis that examined the legal, ethical and technological challenged associated with the massive deployment of novel COVID-19 contact tracing technologies in the midst of the global pandemic.

To learn more about data altruism and how we can help, please visit our Cyber/Data page or contact Charles Morgan.