About the MyData Declaration

The MyData Declaration emerged out of the European Personal Information Management Services (PIMS) Community which met in Brussels (November, 2015), Paris (April, 2016), Helsinki (August, 2016), London (December, 2016), and Berlin (March, 2017). More specifically, the Berlin meetings produced a memorandum that stated two complementary goals:

To establish a MyData Global Network as a legal entity.
To start by developing a common set of principles for human-centric personal data.

The MyData Declaration is the response to the second goal.

How the MyData Declaration was written

This initial version (1.0) of the MyData Declaration was written by three people who are all heavily involved in the PIMS Community as well as in organising the MyData Conference:

Antti “Jogi” Poikola (Finland), researcher at Aalto University and founding member and former chairman of the Open Knowledge Finland association, also the main organiser of the MyData Conference and leading author of the Finnish MyData white paper.
Daniel Kaplan (France), cofounder and scientific advisor to Fing and France’s MesInfos project, member of the MyData Conference’s core team, and core contributor of the MesInfos Self Data Charter.
Tanel Mällo (Estonia), head of Research Administration Office at Tallinn University, lead of MyData Estonia network, member of the MyData Conference’s core team, and organiser of the Tallinn events as part of the MyData 2017 conference.

This initial version of the Declaration drew inspiration from a thorough reading of 20 existing charters and statements of principles, and was prepared by a workshop in Berlin which organised and prioritised the central ideas.

A draft version was sent for comments to the founding members of the MyData Global Network, as well as participants of the Berlin workshop, and received more than 90 comments. After a two-week comments period, the Declaration was fixed in its current state.

How the MyData Declaration will evolve

This Declaration is the founding text of the MyData Global Network, and since 2018, is managed by MyData Global.

The published version of the Declaration is now stable and can be signed by individuals and organisations.

In the future, new versions of the text will need to be written based on experience, as well as on the advancement of technology, markets, uses, and regulations. A set of issues has explicitly been left open for future discussions.

A discussion is already underway as to how selective and binding this Declaration should be, so that organisations cannot sign it without committing to implementing it. We want the Declaration to be open for all to sign, but we also want it to herald a significant change in the way in which all organisations handle personal data.

Participate

Sign the MyData Declaration, as an individual and/or as an organisation.
Use the MyData Declaration to further your own projects and intentions. Base your trust framework, or your terms of services, on it. Use it to lobby and convince clients, partners, and stakeholders. And please, let us know, so we can all benefit from your experience!

The MyData Declaration’s future versions will be produced in an open manner, and everyone is welcome to contribute. The conversation takes place on the MyData Declaration mailing list. This list is currently facilitated by Antti “Jogi” Poikola, Daniel Kaplan, and Tanel Mällo. A list of issues left open in version 1.0 of the Declaration can be accessed here.

Translations

We are happy to receive translations of the MyData Declaration in different languages.

If you can use Git, clone the MyData Declaration repository, add your translation under declaration/1.0/languagecode/index.markdown e.g. declaration/1.0/FR/index.markdown for French language, then submit a pull request.

Without Git knowledge, you can simply download the original english version here, translate it, and send it to hello@mydata.org.

Contributors

The following contributors took part in workshops and/or provided comments to the initial versions (1.0) of the Declaration:

David Alexander, Malte Bayer-Katzenberger, Simon Carroll, Fabien Coutant, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, Katryna Dow, Harri Honko, Viivi Lähteenoja, Joss Langford, Hubert Le Lièpvre, Joachim Lohcamp, Maarten Louman, Maciei Machulak, Robert Madge, Jack Mitchell, Michele Nati, Tristan Nitot, Kei Ohashi, Juuso Parkkinen, Julian Ranger, Geoff Revill, Clara Schmitt, Doc Searls, Tarmo Toikkanen, Luk Vervenne, and Colin Wallis.