The #DataValues Manifesto: Demanding a fair data future

The power to use information to solve society鈥檚 problems has always been key to human progress. From the printing press to vaccine development, new data, analysis, and knowledge has empowered people to rewrite the rules and dramatically improve lives.聽

Yet now, as humanity confronts existential challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and pandemics, we are not using the best data available to tackle the worst problems. Declining trust, exclusion, inequality, and outdated ways of working are creating barriers between data and those who stand to benefit the most from it.

Data needs to serve everyone, and getting it right is as much a political and social endeavor as it is a technical one. We must build data systems that help and empower people, instead of harming and excluding them. This demands change in the ways we design, collect, fund, manage, and use data.

The Data Values movement is calling for urgent action to create a fair data future. Organizations, governments, and people must act now and together to create this change.

What will it take?

People must have a say in data design and collection that affects their lives. Everyone deserves to have their needs, priorities, and experiences鈥攁s they define them鈥攃aptured in data.聽

People must be included in decisions related to data use and re-use. This is essential to hold leaders accountable, protect people from harm, and improve lives.聽

Everyone, everywhere must gain confidence to engage with and use data. Wide-spread data confidence is a building block of a fair data future.聽

All leaders must invest in strengthening cultures of data use and re-use. Repeated positive experiences of regulating, sharing, and using data for public good will build trust.聽

Governments and donors must dedicate more funding to data systems that support action and promote participation and inclusion from start to finish.