Fair and Sustainable Data Governance for Responsible Uses of Emotional Data

In the data economy, setting internal standards and data policies for how data is gathered, stored, processed, and disposed has become both crucial and mandatory for companies and organizations. Thus, different models for data governance have been developed to support companies and organizations in their everyday data business. One prominent example is the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra Rulebook model for a fair data economy, currently used by several data sharing networks across Europe. Although these models generally apply to data governance, whether and to what extent they are suitable for data governance of more specific contexts, like for emotional data, is questionable. Through scenario methodology, we address this issue to elaborate on how emotional data through AI will or can be developed and used in the next five years, and assess the suitability of the existing data governance models. We do this by contextualizing the applicability and validity of the Sitra rulebook model in the framework of our developed scenario. Ultimately, we provide new understanding on the benefits, but also possible limitations, of data current governance models in the context of the rapidly upcoming wave of emotional data and AI, while also reflecting on possible needs for further developments.