Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, has released an important new book about the problems we face online and how to solve them. It is called This is for Everyone, meaning that the internet should be for all.

The philosophy espoused in the book is that the internet should not be a tool for the concentration of power among an elite. He wants the internet to function in a way that maximises the benefit to society.

His central idea, as he has written before, is that people should own their data. Personal data is any data that can be linked to us, such as our purchasing habits, health information and political opinions.

Everyone owning their data is a radically different approach to what we have today where big tech companies own most of it. This change is needed for two reasons.

The first is specifically about people’s right to privacy, so we don’t all feel like we live in a glass box with everything we do being monitored and having an effect on our careers and the prices we pay for services such as insurance. If AI is steered to make more money for an insurer it will do that, but it will not necessarily treat people fairly.

The second reason is that in a world being shaped by AI and data, if we do not own our data, we will have no power and no say in our future. For most of human history, workers’ labour was needed, and this gave them some power to pursue a fairer deal for themselves.

Most of us have the power to deny our valuable labour if we feel we are not treated fairly, but this may not have the same effect in the future. For many of us, in the highly automated AI driven world we are moving towards, our labour will not always be needed. Our data, however, will be very valuable, and if........

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