Data Donations: Data Disclosure for the Common Good

Abstract

Data donation, a form of data altruism, has the potential to advance public interest goals and promote the common good by enabling access to rich, individual-level behavioral data. However, the concept of data donation remains theoretically underdeveloped and its practical implementation is still in its early stages. This paper reviews the current literature on data donation across disciplines and highlights four key application areas where data donations can generate significant societal value: food shopping, healthcare, social media consumption, and mobility. We propose a definition for data donations that can serve as a foundation to integrate the different disciplinary perspectives on the topic. Furthermore, we outline major challenges that currently impede the realization of data donations' full potential. In particular, we discuss data access and data availability, data quality issues, public awareness and data literacy, and effective motivation to overcome privacy concerns and sustain continuous data donations. These challenges call for further research to better understand the theoretical foundations of data donation and explore how such donations can be effectively promoted and realized in practice.

Keywords: Data Donation, Privacy, Altruism, Ethical Data Use, Value of Data