The Data in pandemic times

A few weeks ago, we talked about the New Era that we are living in, ruled by distributed power, conscious consumers, organizations that care for more than profit, and a new kind of economy that takes environmental issues into account.

Having this in mind, we also need to rethink the way we manage and provide an extremely important and indispensable asset — considered the “new oil”: the data. To make it clearer, let's take a closer look at the current coronavirus global crisis.

Created specifically to guide the decision-making process of the health and government authorities, the current monitoring system of COVID-19 is structured, in most countries, based on a very centralized model. For the citizens, this means that:

• They don't have the opportunity to report their own data and because of that, they can't tell certainly if the statistics shown were doctored or not;
• Access to information is limited and not useful for them. In practice, they know more about the evolution of COVID-19 in several countries than in their neighborhoods.

At the society level, this centralization of data can generate some problems:

• When there is a single institution responsible for the governance of the data in question, it is more probable to face human error, fraud, or even corruption;
• Centralizing data can lead to a model of totalitarian surveillance by governments.

At the global scale:

• Right now, each nation has its own centralized way of collecting and processing data, but there is no global intelligence coordinating a unified response to defeat the virus, which will certainly deepen the crisis;
• When countries don't share information, a spirit of solidarity is impossible to arise, making inequality between countries shamelessly ubiquitous.

Understanding the disadvantage of this kind of data governance, how can decentralization benefit us in all these levels?

Firstly, when information is decentralized, that means, it is not exclusively in the hands of a powerful institution, citizens have the opportunity to report and validate their own information and also to access the information. So in addition to ensuring the veracity of the data, citizens can actually use the public information, becoming agents of transformation of their own realities.

On a broader level, for society, the decentralization of information decreases the likelihood of failures and violations. The more distributed the information, the more people have the right to ensure its security since there is less power concentrated on a single agent.

In the context of coronavirus, an alternative to centralized case monitoring is Desviralize.org, a solution developed voluntarily by our contributors in partnership with Moeda.in ITS Rio Google Cloud TwilioHouse Catálise Design & Branding.

Finally, on a global level, decentralization can lead to co-operation and consequently progress. Let's go back to the COVID-19 example: according to the article written by Yuval Noah Harar:

"Countries should be willing to share information openly and humbly seek advice, and should be able to trust the data and the insights they receive. We also need a global effort to produce and distribute medical equipment. Instead of every country trying to do it locally and hoarding whatever equipment it can get, a co-ordinated global effort could greatly accelerate production and make sure life-saving equipment is distributed more fairly.Global co-operation is vitally needed on the economic front too. Given the global nature of the economy and of supply chains, if each government does its own thing in complete disregard of the others, the result will be chaos and a deepening crisis. We need a global plan of action, and we need it fast."

And… Guess What? Blockchain is also a tool to bring decentralization of data governance. Check it out here!