Pay me for my data

Congress would like you to think of data as a commodity, as personal property. By passing its Data Rollover Bill (House Bill No. 87) in December 2025, the House unintentionally conceded that digital data is an asset with value that can be owned. Why else will it compel data “suppliers” to roll over unused data and convert it into cash rebates unless it had personal value to the owner?

If the proposed law will say that your unused gigabytes are yours to keep, accumulate, and even convert into cash rebates, then that data is no longer just a service. It is, for all intents and purposes, an asset. If so, then can it be sold or traded? And, can we apply the same logic to “personal data”?

As I have written, I am not a fan of HB 87 as it is. However, if Congress should choose to pursue the matter, then it should also start considering the possibility of allowing people to either sell personal data, or to ask for rebates or discounts from businesses that collect or harvest their data.

My eye-opener was “The Hidden Price of Data” by Laura Veldkamp, published in the IMF’s Finance & Development magazine in December 2025. She argues that data is not “free” exhaust from the digital economy, but an asset we actively produce and sell. But currently, this transaction is invisible to us because it is “bundled” with our purchases.

In a “bundled transaction,” when we buy a product or service (like using an app or buying goods online), we are simultaneously buying the item and selling our data to the seller or the platform as it solicits certain personal information from us, or deduces trends and other information based on our buying behavior.

In this light, one way to see it is that the price we see is actually the cost of the product we are buying minus the value of the data we provided. But because we never see the price of our data separated from the product, consumers cannot determine if they are getting a fair deal.

Veldkamp thus suggests considering regulations that require firms to unbundle these transactions. Companies would then have to post two prices: the price of the transaction with the right to use our data; and the price of a private transaction without data rights. This will allow consumers to see exactly how much their data is worth to the firm.

Seems far-fetched? Maybe. But about five years ago, who would have thought our cars would drive on their own? Now, that is reality. So, the idea of valuing personal data is possible, especially in today’s world. In fact, I would encourage the government, as a major data repository, to seriously consider it.

Veldkamp’s article concludes that until we can accurately measure and price data, the economy will run on a resource whose true value remains a guess, largely to the benefit of tech companies rather than consumers. And this is where regulation needs to get ahead of the technology curve.

This brings us back to what the House started with its Data Rollover Bill, which may inadvertently rewrite the philosophy of Philippine digital law. By mandating that unused data must roll over, accumulate, and even be converted into cash rebates, lawmakers advance the idea that data is not a service but property.

It presents us with the dictum that if you can keep it, then you own it. While telecommunications companies have treated data service like a pass, a revocable license to access a service for a specific time, the House appears to see things differently. Perhaps the Senate will feel the same way as well.

By forcing telcos to store our unused gigabytes and potentially buy them back through rebates, the law is treating data like a bank deposit. It acknowledges that the consumer has a “property interest” in those digital bits. If you pay for it, then it belongs to you, and no one can arbitrarily take it away just because the clock expired.

I will concede that we are discussing two different things: the “data” we buy from telcos (internet connectivity) and the “data” we give to apps or platforms (personal information). However, I will also assert that both are, quite simply, digital resources. And both have quantifiable economic value.

And the Data Rollover Bill settles the debate for the first type. The digital capacity I pay for belongs to me. It is my property. This paves the way for the second type. If the law recognizes that I own the empty digital bucket (my data allocation), then it must also recognize that I own the water I pour into it (my personal identity, location, and behavior, etc.).

We cannot have a legal system that protects the value of the delivery truck but treats the cargo as free for the taking. Both types of data play very significant roles in today’s world. And legally recognizing the value of both these digital resources cracks the door open for a “Data Dividend” for consumers.

Consider the irony. Under HB 87, if I don’t use my data, the telco effectively owes me money. Yet, when I do use my data to browse Facebook or search on Google, those platforms harvest my personal information, sell it to advertisers, and pay me nothing. Doesn’t seem right, does it?

If the empty bucket (unused data) is a tradable asset protected by law, then maybe the water inside the bucket (my personal information) should be treated as an even more valuable asset. One can only imagine how much money platforms make from the information from their customers or users.

HB 87 will pave the way for legally recognizing the principle that digital assets can be owned. If we can own our digital capacity, then we can also own our digital identity. HB 87, with its accumulation and rebates, is effectively a Data Dividend. It establishes the infrastructure for tracking digital assets and assigning them monetary value.

HB 87 will perhaps usher in the era of Data Property Rights. It will define digital bits as something that can be owned, saved, and cashed in. Now, we must take the next logical step and consider a Data law that ensures we aren’t just paid for the data we don’t use, but also for the data we do.

HB 87 calls data forfeiture “fundamentally unfair” and wants to end it. But with social media platforms and apps monetizing our data without payment to us, isn’t this unfair as well? A case of unjust enrichment at our expense? Data Property Rights may be years away in law, but we have to start somewhere.

Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippine Press Council.

matort@yahoo.com