ISI Academy - An International Framework for Data Governance

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There has been a significant interest in the topic of international data governance in recent years. This webinar will explore why international data governance is increasingly seen as important in an AI-driven world, what might be an appropriate set of data principles to guide such a framework, and discuss some of the barriers that might block such a framework. In addition, the changing nature of data governance, from a narrow focus on data protection to a more holistic view, along with the concepts and the role of digital self-determination, social license, participatory governance, data stewardship, trusted data intermediaries, and privacy-enhancing technologies, will be explored. Issues of data concentration, data and digital sovereignty and the coming data winter will also surface. Finally, the webinar will discuss real-world examples from the health sector.

Towards an International Data Governance Framework
Steve MacFeely
Abstract: The use of data is paramount both to inform individual decisions and to address major global challenges. Data are the lifeblood of the digital economy, feeding algorithms, currencies, artificial intelligence, and driving international services trade, improving the way we respond to crises, informing logistics, shaping markets, communications and politics. But data are not just an economic commodity, to be traded and harvested, they are a personal and social artifact. They contain our most personal and sensitive information – our financial and health records, our networks, our memories, and our most intimate secrets and aspirations. With the advent of digitalization and the internet, our data are ubiquitous - we are the sum of our data. Consequently, this powerful treasure trove needs to be protected carefully. This presentation will articulate arguments for an international data governance framework, for universal data principles, and outline some of the barriers to achieving such a framework and some of the costs of failure.

Re-imagining Global Data Governance in the Age of AI
Dr. Stefaan G. Verhulst
Global data governance is entering a period of profound transition, seeking to go beyond a narrow focus on data protection and compliance toward enabling responsible, legitimate, and socially valuable data re-use  at scale. This shift reframes purpose from minimizing risk to actively supporting public interest outcomes; anchors principles in Digital Self-Determination, emphasizing agency, dignity, and collective choice over how data are used; and introduces new processes, such as social license and participatory governance, to complement consent and legal authorization. Central to this evolution will be investing in new professionals - i.e. strategic data stewards, who can act as intermediaries translating values into operational decisions across complex ecosystems. In practice, this governance turn is increasingly supported by privacy-enhancing technologies that allow analysis while reducing exposure and misuse. Yet these advances unfold amid growing tensions: the acceleration of AI systems that concentrate data power, competing claims of digital sovereignty, and a deepening “data winter” in which access to data for science and public interest is shrinking despite unprecedented data abundance. The challenge ahead is to reconcile innovation with legitimacy -- building governance frameworks that enable data to be re-used, not just protected, in ways that are trusted, participatory, and fit for an AI-driven world. 

Implementing the OECD Data Governance Principles: Eight cross-cutting themes, privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and NSOs as trusted data intermediaries (TDIs)
Christian Reimsbach-Kounatze
Abstract: The OECD has developed a coherent set of legal instruments (Recommendations) that, together, articulate practical principles to help advance coherent approaches to governing data access, sharing, and re-use across sectors and borders, including in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). This presentation will highlight the data governance principles reflected across these Recommendations and their eight common cross-cutting themes: data openness and control for trust; transparency and accountability; data quality and interoperability; incentives and financial sustainability; capacity and infrastructure; leadership, coherence and agility; individual and stakeholder participation; and international cooperation and cross-border interoperability. After briefly highlighting OECD work on health data sharing as a concrete example of how these principles can foster data sharing in the public interest while safeguarding rights such as privacy and data protection, the presentation will discuss how NSOs are contributing to implementing these principles. It will focus in particular on how NSOs can enable trusted access and re-use, including through the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) and by increasingly acting as trusted data intermediaries (TDIs), not only within their respective National Statistical Systems (NSS), but also across the broader national and international data ecosystem.