Data Privacy Week 2026
For Data Privacy Week, we explored how user-governed platforms can balance data privacy with the practical challenges of implementation.
Our model: one account that verifies your identity across research systems without exposing personal information — governed by a cooperative whose members help shape privacy policy. As we put it, people who use digital platforms should be an integral part of how those platforms are built and governed.
Cooperatives are an unconventional structure in research infrastructure, which usually defaults to nonprofit or for-profit forms. The cooperative model is a middle path: direct community engagement in governance and priority-setting.
We plan to demystify cooperative governance in forthcoming articles — sharing our organizational journey, governance documents, and the models that inspire us.
Originally published at https://verime.coop/blog/data-privacy-week-2026