Let the Computer Say NO! The Neglected Potential of Policy Definition Languages for Data Sovereignty

When using today's internet services and platform ecosystems, data of consumers is often harvested and shared without their consent; that is, consumers seized to be sovereigns of their own data. Due to the rapid and abundant nature of interactions in today's platform ecosystems, manual consent management is impracticable. To support development of semi-automated solutions for this problem, we investigated the use of policy definition languages as machine-readable and enforceable mechanism to re-establish data sovereignty for consumers. Based on an expert literature review, we develop a framework of the chances and challenges of leveraging policy definition languages as central building blocks for data sovereignty in platform ecosystems.