Data Sovereignty

Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of a American Indian nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of its own data.

Raw data, including digital sequence information from human genomes, have in recent years emerged as a top global commodity.

“Previous government-funded, large-scale human genome sequencing efforts, such as the Human Genome Diversity Project, the International HapMap Project, and the 1000 Genomes Project, provide examples of the ways in which open-source data have been commodified in the past. 
These initiatives, which promised unrestricted, open access to data on population-specific biomarkers, ultimately enabled the generation of nearly a billion dollars’ worth of profits by pharmaceutical and ancestry-testing companies.” Keola Fox, NativeBio board member.