With an eye on tech giants, the government will discuss creating a new system to prevent data oligopolies.
The scope of data usage is expected to expand rapidly in various fields, including autonomous driving and medical care, in addition to existing services such as search engines and social media. By making it easier for individuals and businesses to manage their own data, the government aims to prevent specific companies from monopolizing data.
Discussions will be held at a public-private council that was launched Thursday by the government's Headquarters for Digital Market Competition. The entity, named the "trusted web promotion council," includes business leaders, professors and representatives from information technology start-ups among its members. The council will identify points of contention and compile a road map for creating a necessary system by next spring.
Facebook Inc. and other tech giants allow people to use the IDs they created to use the companies' social media platforms when logging in to other services. It has been pointed out that this approach makes it easier for tech giants to grasp how people use other operators' services.
Considering this situation, one of the points of contention the council is expected to discuss is a scheme under which individuals and companies retain and manage their own highly secure single IDs for using services such as searching, emailing and logging in to social media. The scheme is aimed at making it difficult for specific entities to collect an excessive amount of data.
For the management of these single IDs, the council is expected to look into using blockchain, a technology designed to prevent tampering with data. The council is also expected to consider having a third-party organization manage these single IDs and their data on behalf of individual users, as it is cumbersome for them to do so on their own.
To prevent data oligopolies, some U.S. companies and organizations are trying to establish international rules that allow individuals and companies to independently manage their own data. The European Union has already introduced regulations that prohibit personal information from being taken out of its territory, in principle.
The government intends to take part in international discussions by identifying technical and other issues.
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