[Exclusive] Concept of 'Participation Income' Instead of Basic Income Through Data Exchange

[Asia Economy Reporters Park Cheol-eung and Jo Seul-gi] "The first agenda item when discussing the post-COVID era was data."

This is a statement from Lee Kwang-jae, head of the Post-COVID Headquarters of the Democratic Party's COVID-19 National Crisis Overcoming Committee, who is pushing for the establishment of a Data Agency and Data Exchange. The plan is to create a government control tower to support and accelerate the data industry and to build a system where the public collects data and sells it to necessary businesses. Data exchanges in various fields such as healthcare under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, transportation, and construction could be established.

Google achieved great success in 2009 when the H1N1 flu spread worldwide by developing predictive indicators through methods such as comparing frequently searched terms related to past seasonal flu with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Financial Data Exchange was already opened last month by the Financial Security Institute.

Lee explained, "The financial sector has a stable data system through credit cards, so it launched earlier, and going forward, we will start extracting and accumulating necessary data in a wide range of fields beyond finance." He added, "For example, overseas cases exist where data on road conditions and traffic congestion are collected and utilized through autonomous vehicles."

He believes that selective support for vulnerable groups is preferable to providing universal basic income to all citizens. The means to implement this is 'participatory income' based on the Data Agency and Data Exchange. Lee said, "Basic income is difficult to implement through general taxation," and added, "We are trying to create a system to pay income to those who produce data."

As the data industry rapidly grows, discussions on data sovereignty and data income are actively taking place both domestically and internationally. Tim Dunlop, an Australian political philosopher and author of The Future of Everything, stated at the 'Gyeonggi-do Data Dividend' forum held at the National Assembly last February, "Because data is a resource owned by all of us, any company profiting from data extraction must pay for those benefits," and argued, "Fairer redistribution of data extraction revenues is an important way to ensure a vibrant economy and a prosperous society."

The importance of the data industry is recognized beyond political lines of progressivism and conservatism. Kim Jong-in, emergency committee chairman of the United Future Party, emphasized on the 4th, "In this era, data is more valuable than crude oil; data is money," and said, "National innovation is proportional to data utilization. We must revise the government organization law to create a Data Agency that can turn data into business models." Former United Future Party lawmaker Kim Se-yeon also proposed an amendment last November to include data as 'property' under civil law.

However, concerns exist about managing data at the public level. There is a risk that it could become an obstacle limiting data utilization like 'stagnant water.'

Kim Jae-hwan, policy director of the Internet Enterprise Association, said, "For revitalizing the data economy, it is most important to combine data across heterogeneous industries such as finance and healthcare and to use it as needed in the right place," and added, "Data should be usable and accessible wherever necessary, so I question whether it is necessary to centralize it in one place."

A senior official from a major ICT company planning new businesses following the implementation of the Data 3 Act also said, "I don't understand how they plan to solve this with the concept of a '청' (agency) that has no policy function," and criticized, "At present, it does not seem like a measure welcomed by the industry." Another ICT company official said, "The most important thing is data utilization," and added, "The problem is not that data is not gathered in one place." In particular, the industry expresses concerns about plans to integrate not only public data but also private data management.

An expert on data law who requested anonymity said, "Since there are many claims about the importance of data, I think this was thrown out as an agenda item for now," and added, "When the Personal Information Protection Commission is launched in August, it will handle policy-related data protection and utilization, so it is unclear what the Data Agency will do."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.