If Data is the New Currency, Where Does Law and Regulation Fit In? (Michael Clark - Head of Digital Transformation & Futurist, Mastercard)

Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast

This episode is a conversation with Michael Clark the VP Global Head of Digital Transformation and Futurist at MasterCard. He discusses his upcoming book "Data Revolution, The New Currency of You" and what he believes will be a new paradigm in data ownership–that we will actually own our own data and benefit from its value. He also examines what role the law and regulation should play in it.

Michael and many others like him, believe that data is going to become a new currency and that to date, we have overlooked its value. Consumers have given up most of their control and access to this value because we have been too focused on what we were getting in exchange its use –i.e. The software tools we use.

Michael is well suited to write a book about the value of data. He has long worked in banking and spent a lot of time in the open banking world which, among other things, is a practice that provides third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking information through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

For consumers to take back their data and capture its value, Michael says the focus needs to broaden from data privacy and also onto security, ethics, and bias in data usage

He says it is going to also take a new way of thinking–specifically more cooperation between regulators and the tech industry to effectively manage and leverage the tech fairly.

Michael also believes that the use of AI will play a big role in data management going forward because there is so much data, it will continue to grow and AI is the only way we are going to be able to understand what data tells us and harness its value.