The White House Wants Our Thoughts On Data Portability

The White House is looking for our thoughts on data portability. While it is the U.S. federal government asking for our thoughts, something that could apply to our tax returns, veterans records, or student loan information. They seem to be most interested in what data portability means to us as consumers, or via many online services today—as the product.

Here is what they are looking for:

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is interested in understanding the benefits and drawbacks of increased data portability as well as potential policy avenues to achieve greater data portability. The views of the American people, including stakeholders such as consumers, academic and industry researchers, and private companies, are important to inform an understanding of these questions.

They want our input in 5000 words or less by November 23, 2016. I am going to gather my own thoughts on data portability, and publish to API Evangelist, as well as submit via their RFI form. This is an extremely important topic and one I'm glad to see the White House picking up, and fingers crossed, will be moving forward in a consumer-centered way.

While I feel government open data is a critical piece of the puzzle, I think data literacy amongst consumer is just as critical. Data is what is fueling the tech sector, and in most scenarios, it is our personal data. The more control we have over this data, the better off we will be. The more opportunities we have to store locally and migrate where we need to, the more data literate we will all be.

Anyways, I'll save my thoughts for my own response for the White House data portability RFI; I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.