"Take Amartya Sen's flute example: there is a little kid who makes a flute and then there is another little kid who plays the flute and then there is a little kid who doesn’t have any other toy. Should this flute be given to the person who has made it, to the person who actually knows to play the flute, or to the person who doesn’t have any other toy?" This parable, brought up at MediaNama's two-day discussion on the Governance of Non-Personal Data, is a useful lens to look at the government requiring companies to sell non-personal data. Does the government have a legitimate public interest or sovereign claim over data it did not work to gather, and that it may not be in the best position to take advantage of? The discussion was held with support from Centre for Communication Governance (NLU Delhi), Facebook and FTI Consulting. Remarks are anonymised because the discussion was held under Chatham House Rules. Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. Land acquisition and non-personal data: One attendee drew a parallel between the government requiring — but somewhat compensating — land they needed for state projects. "Just because land acquisition has existed as an eminent domain practice for hundreds of years, it's not free from controversy." The attendee pointed out that even though land acquisition has existed for a long time, there have been cases where entire communities have been displaced because of their strong cultural and professional ties with the land that…
