Property and (Intellectual) Ownership of Consumers’ Information: A New Taxonomy for Personal Data

• Gianclaudio Malgieri

This article proposes a new personal data taxonomy in order to determine more clearly ownership and control rights on different kinds of information related to consumers. In an information society, personal data is no longer a mere expression of personality but a strong economic element in the relationships between companies and customers. As a consequence, the new General Data Protection Regulation recognises different levels of control rights to consumers in accordance with a “proprietarian” approach to personal data. Moreover, existing data taxonomies (based on a subject matter approach) are anachronistic. In an IoT world, the information industry is interested in any data related to consumers: not only their commercial preferences or habits, but also their health conditions, their family and financial status, their sports habits, friendships, and so on. At the same time, there exists a great conflict between privacy concerns and IP interests of companies regarding customer data processing.