Governance and accountability in the new data ecology

Electronic data licenses (EDLs) are data governance instruments that consist of legal rules (rights, obligations and prohibitions) governing an organization´s data practices. These rules include data requirements, such as rights to collect, use, retain and transfer data to third parties and prohibitions preventing these practices. We introduce the EDL concept by describing the emerging data ecology, wherein information sharing will reach unprecedented scale, and by presenting legal foundations for the EDL concept. We conclude with a broad vision for the EDL framework by discussing the license management and composition strategies, criteria for evaluating solutions, and how EDLs should support data principles and standards, before concluding with a review of related work that supports this vision.