E-Paper
Reclaiming power in the digital economy
This article is authored by Bapu Vaitla, Astha Kapoor and Deepali Khanna.
Imagine this: Everything you do online, every purchase, every search, every location ping, is owned and stored by a faceless company. You have no say in how that data is used, who it’s sold to, or whether it’s used to deny you a loan or raise your insurance premium. If you want access, privacy, or redress, you’re forced to negotiate with a system stacked against you. This is the status quo of today’s digital economy. Now imagine an alternative: A way to participate in modern digital life while retaining control over your data – data cooperatives.
Data cooperatives offer an alternative form of governance of digital resources (data) that can, as historically seen, serve as a mechanism to renegotiate power and redistribute resources. Data cooperatives can enable members to pool data resources under the principles of shared ownership, govern through decisions made by members, define and direct data use in pursuit of public good, and combat the risks of surveillance capitalism. Data cooperatives can help workers and consumers take control of their data in an era where this seems like a lost cause. Governments and international institutions should invest in data cooperatives by creating legal and financial frameworks that recognise them as critical digital infrastructure, fund their development, and ensure they are embedded in national and global data governance strategies. In recognition of the power and potential of cooperatives and the role they play in the new economy, the UN has announced 2025 to be the International Year of Cooperatives (Cooperatives Build a Better World).
Cooperatives have long been an instrument of collective ownership and decision-making, with the first cooperative recorded in 1761 in Scotland, among a weaving community. Since then, cooperatives have grown as grassroots organisations to negotiate the redistribution of power by advocating for collective ownership and equitable profit-sharing over corporate extraction. Today, the three million cooperatives globally have a membership of at least 12% of humanity, a sign that the movement continues to be strong and relevant, even as the means of production have transformed significantly.
Over the last few years, efforts have been made to build data cooperatives in different contexts and countries. In Oregon, United States, Driver’s Seat Coop was set up to help app-based workers pool their data to better negotiate with platforms, in Switzerland, MiData Coop supported patients to poll and direct their data for research. Since 2022, Aapti Institute and Data2X have been working with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, through a grant to the United Nations Foundation to both facilitate the creation of new cooperatives, as well as work with existing cooperatives to help them pool data and collectively steward it across the globe. For instance, in India, the organisations worked with a SEWA-led women’s cooperative to understand how data pooling could result in better access to financial services. The same model was also replicated with a women’s cooperative in Tanzania.
More recently, research efforts have also begun to uncover bottom up data efforts that drive climate action to serve the most marginalised populations, and can take the form of data cooperatives over time. For instance, in Kerala, India the Kerala Food Platform (KFP) is already tapping into the solidarity economy by partnering with local cooperative banks and food producer organisations (FPOs). Through this partnership, the KFP is enabling traceability of the local food system by collecting data from member-farmers and accumulating more data through the multiple stages of the supply chain. Through KFP, farmers have improved access to markets, especially for Pokkali, a climate resilient rice variety.
Similar community-driven bottom up initiatives are also being explored in South East Asia. Across a network of eleven community forests in Thailand, the Mae Fah Luang Foundation is supporting communities to participate in a voluntary carbon market. The Mae Fah Luang Foundation works with communities to gather data from the forest to assess and verify them from carbon credits. The Mae Fah Luang Foundation is also going to partner with Thaicom, through which geospatial data from satellite images will train AI/ML tools to understand carbon sequestration efforts, and provide insights back to the community. In the Mekong belt of Thailand, Open Development Mekong has developed a platform for women to share their experiences and knowledge on natural resource governance. By reimagining the notion of a platform as an inclusive, collaborative and safe space, indigenous knowledge is being preserved in a manner which centers the community. Trust, which has become the backbone of the platform has also allowed women to share their experience of gender-based violence.
These greenshoots of bottom up data governance point to how communities are coming together, to renegotiate power and extractive relationships that have become the norm in the digital economy and pave the way for more organised collective bargaining that data cooperatives can enable. There is increased awareness on data cooperatives in international collaborative documentation, such as the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the UN AI panel, both of which recognise the importance of digital commons and collective governance. In fact, the European Union's Digital Governance Act explicitly recognises the role of data cooperatives in helping citizens navigate the digital economy.
Yet this vision isn’t without hurdles. Building trust, communicating the value of data, technical capacity, and institutional support for data cooperatives takes time. There are also unanswered questions on sustainability of these models without the monetisation of data. Many communities lack the infrastructure, legal clarity, or digital literacy to engage meaningfully in such models. Without careful co-design, cooperatives risk replicating the same exclusions they aim to dismantle. Data cooperatives must prove their value, not just as ethical alternatives, but as viable, scalable, and secure forms of governance in a datafied world. Still, these early experiments offer a crucial starting point: a way to imagine and build a digital future that prioritises dignity, democracy, and collective power over surveillance and extraction.
The notion that there is a possible “exit through the community” is gaining traction as individuals and communities seek ways to take back control in a digital economy dominated by extraction and opacity. There is an urgent need to support more pilots and grounded use cases that demonstrate how bottom-up, collective data stewardship through cooperatives can offer a viable, democratic alternative. Data cooperatives aren’t just a good idea; they are an emerging solution that can enable structural shifts in how data is governed, used, and valued. While global initiatives like the International Year of Cooperatives can help spotlight these efforts, the real momentum will come from investing in the infrastructure, legal frameworks, and community capacity needed to make data cooperatives scalable, credible, and effective. Now is the time to move from recognition to action.
This article is authored by Bapu Vaitla, senior fellow, Data 2x, Astha Kapoor, co-founder and director, Aapti Institute & Deepali Khanna, senior vice-president and head of Asia, The Rockefeller Foundation.
