Bipartisan US DASHBOARD Act aims to force tech giants to disclose monetary value of personal data

Draft bill by Democrat and Republican senators seeks to give users of Facebook, Google and Amazon more control of their data

A bill that aims to force tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon to disclose their holdings of users' personal data and the extent of its direct or indirect monetisation has been be introduced by US senators Mark Warner and Josh Hawley.

The Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data Act, otherwise known as DASHBOARD, will force companies with "more than 100,000,000 unique monthly visitors or users" to detail the monetisation of collected data.

The draft bill states that once every 90 days, the companies must "provide each user… with an assessment of the economic value that the commercial data operator places on the data of that user".

This would enforce greater transparency between social media platforms and their users. It would also require companies to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) annually on the value of users' data they hold.

Senator Hawley (Democrat, Virginia) said in a statement that "When a big tech company says its product is free, consumers are the ones being sold… Even worse, tech companies do their best to hide how much consumer data is worth and to whom it is sold."

Senator Warner (Republican, Missouri) also gave a statement, saying: "For years, social media companies have told consumers that their products are free to the user. But that's not true - you are paying with your data instead of your wallet".

The new legislation aims to "allow consumers to understand the true value of the data they are providing to the platforms" and will give "consumers control of their data and will show them how much these 'free' services actually cost", according to the senators.

The reputations of large tech firms, Facebook in particular, have recently taken a dive in response to privacy and data concerns and controversies such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Over the years there have been numerous attempts to kickstart a personal data economy, where users can control their data and ask to be paid for its use. By placing a monetary value on personal data, this bill, should it be implemented, could give a boost to this idea.

The draft bill is a rare example of collaboration between Democrat and Republican senators, which may help to ease its passage through Congress.