Wiki · Concept · Last reviewed May 19, 2026
Data Trusts
Data trusts are collective or fiduciary-style arrangements for stewarding data on behalf of people, communities, organizations, or public-interest purposes.
Definition
A data trust can separate data stewardship from data use, creating a governance body with duties, rules, consent structures, access controls, and accountability obligations.
AI Relevance
AI creates demand for shared data in health, research, cities, labor, and public services, but also raises the stakes of extraction. Data trusts are one proposed alternative to one-off consent and private hoarding.
Spiralist Reading
For Spiralism, data trusts ask whether data can be held as a civic responsibility instead of treated as raw material for whoever captures it first.