Should people be paid for sharing their personal data online?

While getting paid for tagging photos on Instagram or uploading to YouTube might sound way off, the idea has been gaining some traction in the United States as tech giants from Google, to Facebook and Twitter, face increased scrutiny over the way they handle personal information. — Dreamstime/TNS

LONDON: From tagging photos on Facebook to driving with Google Maps, people should join forces in "data unions" to demand payment for letting online tools collect their data, according to an economist advocating for radical reforms to improve society.

Glen Weyl, a principal researcher at the research arm of US tech giant Microsoft, said people have been "fooled" into handing over data that is then used in artificial intelligence (AI) to copy human behaviour and possibly eliminate some jobs.