Recognising personal data as a digital asset in Dubai

Data is misunderstood and misused as the commodity it could be. It is humankind's greatest asset; in short, it is potential. Add to this rapid development of powerful technology, from smartphones to wearables, and the world becomes smaller. People feel more connected, yet personal data feels further away from their control of it. Technology has largely dominated the perspective of how the future is viewed and shaped, and while data has never been elevated as the driving force behind technology, it is undeniably the heartbeat of (digital) economies globally. Data privacy law and regulation, often seen as the remaining hope for supporting rights of data owners, has become more fragmented and difficult to implement and with the emergence of the power of processing personal data via autonomous systems such as generative artificial intelligence (AI), it is reaching a pivotal moment. As virtual and physical worlds merge, autonomous processing of data becomes more prevalent and dominant, and people will seek agency while also desiring the trust to express themselves freely, without the fear of compromising their data and identity. This is perhaps the moment where the collective change of the commonly accepted model of data is needed, to view it instead as a multidimensional, identifiable and ownable thing. Certain countries such as China and the UAE are providing a basis for developing this concept further. The general discussion herein provides the foundations to conclude that Dubai is one of the few cities in the world that can and does change the way the use and ethical processing of personal data is considered, particularly as an asset to the data subject themselves.