Jessica Leblanc
Lawyer
Jessica Leblanc is a member of the Quebec Bar and holds a master's degree in property law. She is particularly interested in the implementation of collective projects using private law tools, and in the transformation of property under the impact of social and environmental constraints.
Since fall 2020, she has been working as a project manager for Territoires innovants en économie sociale et solidaire (TIESS) to study the creation of social utility trusts applied to the immaterial domain of digital data. She is actively involved in the implementation of two pilot projects aimed at testing this social innovation and understanding its workings.
Thinking about data governance in the general interest: the potential and challenges of the social utility trust
This presentation aims to illustrate the potential and challenges of setting up a social utility trust as a governance mechanism for sharing or pooling data.
The social utility trust is a legal tool that makes it possible to place a general interest purpose at the heart of data governance mechanisms, and at the center of any action or decision-making concerning data, which explains its appeal for implementing data sharing or pooling projects between numerous stakeholders. However, this innovative use of the social utility trust is not without its challenges. Based on two pilot projects involving the sharing and pooling of cultural and mobility data, this presentation will first address the key concepts of the social utility trust and, secondly, the specific issues of data governance linked to the use of this tool, to the multiplicity of stakeholders and to the roles of these stakeholders.