IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 70

proportion of Internet traffic, will continue to rise
sharply [3]. In 2018, there were already more "things"
(8.6 billion) connected to the Internet than people (5.7
billion mobile broadband subscriptions). The number
of IoT connections is forecasted to exceed 22 billion by
2025 [2, p. 7]. According to some estimates, the number of IoT devices could exceed 75 billion later in the
decade and reach 200 billion when 5G technologies
are fully deployed [3], [4]. With the continued reduction
in data collection and storage costs, new opportunities
will arise for data analytics using continuously streaming data, as opposed to traditional data stacked in databases, which require extensive data processing,
cleansing, and transfer work [5]. New data value chains,
comprising of thousands of participating organizations
that support data collection, data access and storage mechanisms, and the production of insights from data to
address public good issues, can be created [2, p. 2].
Many global digital cooperation opportunities have
been framed through the adoption of the United
Nations' (UN's) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
[6]. There is potential for pooling data from around the
world in areas such as climate change, sustainability,
health, and agriculture to enable data scientists and
civil society to better understand complex issues and to
find new ways to make progress. (See Figure 1.)
According to the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, interoperability standards are needed to connect
data to appropriate access and storage platforms
upstream, and to AI experts downstream. To be successful, data commons will require criteria for establishing relevance to the SDGs, new standards for interoperability,
rules on access, and safeguards to ensure privacy and
security [7]. I believe this can only be accomplished
through a new, stand-alone Data Standards Task Force.

What Standards Are and Why They Matter
As explained in the Center for International Governance
Innovation (CIGI) paper entitled "Big Data Analytics
Need Standards to Thrive," standards and conformity
assessment activities keep the economy running [8].
They cover everything from setting the size of the simplest screw thread to managing the most complex information technology network. Standards provide a level
playing field for industry and help build trust between
participants in supply chains. They serve as a "handshake" between various components of systems and
allow for interoperability. Standards also play a pivotal
role in protecting the health and safety of consumers in
a range of sectors, including food and consumer products, infrastructure, and the workplace.
Standards set out requirements, specifications,
guidelines, or characteristics that can be consistently
applied to ensure that products, materials, processes,

and services perform as intended - qualitatively, safely,
and efficiently. They are drafted in a way that allows
another party to test and certify that a product, process,
or system meets the requirements of a specific standard. Put simply, they make things work, help innovations spread, and facilitate efficient trade among
provinces, countries, economic regions, and the international community of nations.
Standards are generally developed through a formalized rule-making process involving engineers and other
technical experts, regulators, and consumer interests.
The process aims at balancing competing interests in
order to offer a technical solution that is broadly accepted and shares the benefits of technological compatibility as widely as possible.
Many standards bodies were created at the beginning of the twentieth century to support industrialization. After World War II, new international organizations
such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) were established as trade liberalization discussions gained traction.
In addition, a large number of sector specific agencies were also created under the auspices of the United
Nations after World War II. These agencies have been
mandated by nation states to address interoperability,
health, safety, and sustainability issues. Significant
resources are invested by industry and governments to
develop and maintain many thousands of codes, standards, guidelines, specifications, and best practices, as
well as model technical regulations, which make their
way into national regulatory frameworks.

No New UN Body in Sight
Ideally, a new international agency created through an
international convention would set standardization priorities and coordinate standards development activities.
However, there is no consensus among nations to create
a global framework to manage data governance through
the United Nations.
The UN began to discuss data governance issues
stemming from the deployment of the Internet almost
20 years ago in response to a request by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the main standards setting body reporting to the UN [9]. The ITU
convened a first World Summit on the Information Society, which took place in two phases in 2003 and in
2005. The declarations stemming from the Summit
called for the implementation of a bold plan of action to
build the Information Society and "to put the ICT sector
at the service of development" [10].
Over the following decade, UN affiliated organizations implemented a series of actions to make the
Internet more accessible in developing countries, for
exa mple by str ik ing pa r tnerships to introduce

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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