Privacy and consumer data rights are gaining more attention across the globe as more and more consumers come to rely on the services offered in the digital economy. Consumer data rights can include fundamental rights to privacy, as well as regulations controlling the manner in which consumers consent to share their data with businesses and governments, and other regulations around how consumers can access, share and delete their data. Issues around privacy and data protection intersect in a number of policy areas including competition, consumer, privacy and data protection. There has been recent debate about the role of each of these policies in ensuring good privacy and data protection outcomes for consumers.

This roundtable was particularly timely, as a number of OECD jurisdictions had recently adopted, or were considering adopting, a range of new data rights for consumers. In many cases, the competitive impacts of these rights were largely untested and businesses were still adapting their processes in order to comply.

In June 2020, the OECD addressed three primary questions:

1. How do businesses use consumer data and are there market failures with respect to consumer data?
2. What is the role of competition law enforcement?
3. What is the role of competition advocacy?

All related documentation is available on this page.

SEE ALSO

Full list of best practice roundtables on competition

OECD Handbook on Competition Policy in the Digital Age

INVITED SPEAKERS

Wolfgang Kerber Bio 

Professor of Economics, University of Marburg

Elizabeth Denham Bio  

Information Commissioner, UK 

Alessandro Acquisti Bio   

Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University 

DOCUMENTS

OECD Background note • Note de réflexion de l'OCDE 

Executive Summary with key findings

Detailed Summary of the discussion

Contributions

VIDEOS

Anna Barker on consumer data rights and competition

Elizabeth Denham on consumer data rights and competitionDenham

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Wolfgang Kerber on consumer data rights and competition

Alessandro Acquisti on factors that influence consumer valuations regarding privacy

PRÉSENTATIONS

RELATED BEST PRACTICE ROUNDTABLES

Non-price effects of mergers (2018)

Quality considerations in the zero-price economy (2018)

Personalised pricing in the digital era (2018)

Big data: Bringing competition policy to the digital era (2016)

SEE ALSO

OECD Handbook on Competition Policy in the Digital Age (2022)

Consumer data and competition: A new balancing act for online markets? (2021)

Recommendation on Consumer Protection in E-Commerce (2016)

The OECD Privacy Framework (2018)

OECD best practice roundtables on competition

More OECD work on competition