DANA Data Sovereignty: taxing human data mining through municipalities

When I say data sovereignty, I am not thinking only about privacy policies or “accept cookies” buttons.

I am thinking of something much more intimate:

every click, heartbeat, path on the street, purchase and pause on a video
is a tiny sample of my nervous system and my metabolism.

Today, this living stream is captured for free,
refined into prediction and influence,
and sold back to us as advertising, credit scores and “personalized” feeds.

With DANA Data Sovereignty, I want to reverse the direction:

my data is part of my body – an extension of my metabolism and my DANA (DNA intelligence).

If someone wants to mine it,
they must pay me and my community,
under rules decided in the place where I actually live: the municipality.

The focus I want to light

Among everything that can be said about surveillance capitalism, AI and digital rights, I choose one focus:

human data is bio-psycho-social information about bodies in a biome.

Mining it without consent and without redistribution is
a form of metabolic extraction,
like taking water from an aquifer or fish from a river.

DANA Data Sovereignty means:

• recognising data as an extension of bodily and cognitive processes,
  
  

• putting municipalities as guardians and tax authorities over this extraction,
  
  

• and using the revenue to feed DREX CIDADÃO / IMIGRANTE and public services,
  not just corporate profit.
  
  

Data as an extension of the body

From the DANA perspective, data is not abstract:

• my location data is the trace of my body in space;
  
  

• my heart-rate from a smartwatch is the rhythm of my autonomic nervous system;
  
  

• my clicks and pauses reveal my attention, desires, fears, fatigue;
  
  

• my language and images encapsulate memories and emotional history.
  
  

Neuroscience and psychology show that:

• digital traces (what we watch, like, share) reflect internal states – mood, cravings, social needs;
  
  

• algorithms trained on these traces can predict
  political orientation, personality traits and even mental health risk.
  
  

Research on digital phenotyping goes further:

• smartphones and wearables can continuously measure
  movement, sleep, social activity, speech patterns;
  
  

• these signals can be used to detect early signs of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or relapse in psychosis.
  
  

That means that:

the data we generate is, in practice, a neural and metabolic biopsy
running 24 hours a day.

If a company or government captures and analyses that without
fair rules and redistribution, we are in the presence of:

• non-consensual neural extraction;
  
  

• an invisible economic activity built on top of bodies and brains.
  
  

This extraction has value:

• targeted advertising and profiling;
  
  

• risk scoring for credit and insurance;
  
  

• optimisation of logistics, pricing and labour control.
  
  

In a DANA framework, we call this what it is:

mining of human data – a metabolic and cognitive resource
that belongs first to individuals and their communities.

Why municipalities?

Why do I place municipalities at the centre of DANA Data Sovereignty?

Because the data mining of a platform is always local, even when the server is global:

• it is the people of a city or district whose clicks, routes, faces and voices are captured;
  
  

• it is the local infrastructure (streets, schools, hospitals) that sustains these lives;
  
  

• it is the local biome that supports the bodies generating that data.
  
  

At the same time, municipalities are:

• close enough to citizens to be audited and pressured;
  
  

• capable of integrating data revenue with decisions on
  transport, health, education, environment and DREX.
  
  

International debates on data sovereignty and local data governance are already moving in this direction:

• cities like Barcelona and Amsterdam have discussed “data commons” and ethical digital charters,
  treating urban data as a shared resource to serve residents, not only corporations;
  
  

• some proposals envision data trusts or municipal data offices
  to manage access collectively and ensure benefits are reinvested locally.
  
  

DANA Data Sovereignty radicalises this:

municipalities become regulators and tax collectors
of any activity that mines, processes or monetises human data
from people and biomes within their territory.

Surveillance capitalism as metabolic extraction

Shoshana Zuboff calls it surveillance capitalism:

• platforms capture behavioural surplus – data about our actions not needed for basic service;
  
  

• they use it to predict and shape what we will do;
  
  

• they sell these predictions to advertisers, political actors and others.
  
  

This is not just an economic model;
it is a mass psychological experiment running in real time:

• reward circuits are tuned through likes, streaks and notifications;
  
  

• recommendation algorithms push content that maximises engagement,
  not health or truth;
  
  

• emotional states (anger, fear, envy) are amplified
  because they keep people online longer.
  
  

Neuroscience shows that:

• ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens respond to social rewards and “likes”
  much like they do to money or food;
  
  

• repeated, unpredictable rewards (variable schedules)
  are especially potent in driving compulsive behaviour;
  
  

• adolescents, whose prefrontal control systems are still maturing,
  are particularly vulnerable to these dynamics.
  
  

So the data economy is not neutral:

it reorganises the metabolism of attention, emotion and decision-making
for profit.

DANA Data Sovereignty responds with three moves:

1. Name it as extraction – not “free service”, but mining of neural-metabolic information.
   
   

2. Tax it locally – so that a portion of this value returns to the people and biomes that generated it.
   
   

3. Redirect it – to fund DREX, public health, education and digital infrastructures aligned with Metabolic Well-Being.
   
   

How DANA Data Sovereignty could work

In my proposal, municipalities would have constitutional authority to:

1. Define human data as a protected local resource
   
   

• “Human data” includes any digital information
  that can be linked (directly or indirectly) to bodies, behaviours or local biomes;
  
  

• this includes sensor data from smart cities, platforms, apps, cameras, payment systems.
  
  

2. Require registration and transparency
   
   

• any entity that collects or processes human data from people in the municipality
  must register as a data miner;
  
  

• they must declare what types of data they collect, for what purposes,
  with which models and which third parties.
  
  

3. Tax the value generated
   
   

• a local data extraction tax is charged on revenues
  obtained from the monetisation of this data
  (advertising, profiling, selling access, risk scoring, etc.);
  
  

• this tax is earmarked:
  
  

• at least one part to DREX CIDADÃO / IMIGRANTE for residents;
  
  

• another part to digital and health infrastructures that protect against overuse and addiction;
  
  

• another part to biome protection (e.g., green spaces, clean air, water).
  
  

4. Recognise personal and communal rights
   
   

• individuals maintain rights to access, portability, correction and deletion of their data;
  
  

• communities (neighbourhoods, Indigenous groups) can demand
  collective impact assessments when data is used to shape policies, policing or services.
  
  

5. Audit AI and behavioural models
   
   

• when AI systems are trained on local data to influence behaviour
  (ads, recommendation, scoring, nudges),
  they must be audited for bias, manipulation and harm,
  with municipal powers to suspend or fine abusive practices.
  
  

From the citizen’s point of view:

“If someone profits from my digital shadow,
a part of that value returns to my body, my city and my biome,
instead of disappearing into the 01s’ accounts.”

Neural protection as a public duty

Why do I insist that DANA Data Sovereignty is not just about money,
but about neuronal protection?

Because the same infrastructures that mine data also:

• shape attention spans;
  
  

• reinforce particular emotional patterns (outrage, fear, comparison);
  
  

• alter sleep, social rhythms and bodily habits.
  
  

Studies on problematic social media use show associations with:

• higher rates of depression and anxiety;
  
  

• sleep disturbances;
  
  

• impaired academic performance and self-esteem, especially in adolescents.
  
  

From a DANA perspective, this is equivalent to:

a factory dumping invisible toxins into the nervous systems of a city.

If we would never allow a company to dump chemicals into the water for free,
we should not allow unrestricted dumping of neural toxins of design
into our digital environment.

Municipal data taxation and regulation are:

• the environmental law of the cognitive-metabolic sphere;
  
  

• tools to force platforms to internalise the cost of the harm they generate.
  
  

Draft constitutional article (in Spanish)

Artículo X – Soberanía de Datos DANA y Tributación de la Minería de Datos Humanos

1. El Estado reconoce que los datos generados por las personas en su vida cotidiana —incluyendo información sobre su cuerpo, comportamiento, relaciones, desplazamientos y su interacción con los biomas locales— forman parte de su esfera de dignidad, de su metabolismo y de la inteligencia DANA, y no podrán ser apropiados ni explotados sin garantías reforzadas de derechos.
   
   

2. Las municipalidades serán competentes para regular y gravar la actividad de minería de datos humanos realizada en su territorio, entendida como la recopilación, procesamiento y monetización de datos personales o seudonimizados derivados de la vida de las personas y de los biomas locales, por parte de entidades públicas o privadas.
   
   

3. Se establecerá un impuesto local sobre la extracción y explotación de datos humanos, cuyos ingresos se destinarán prioritariamente a financiar el DREX CIDADÃO e IMIGRANTE, infraestructuras digitales éticas, programas de protección de la salud mental y proyectos de regeneración de los biomas urbanos y rurales.
   
   

4. Las entidades que realicen minería de datos humanos deberán registrarse ante la autoridad municipal, informar de manera transparente los tipos de datos recolectados, los fines de su uso, los modelos algorítmicos empleados y los terceros con quienes compartan dichos datos, quedando sujetas a auditorías periódicas.
   
   

5. La ley garantizará a las personas derechos efectivos de acceso, portabilidad, rectificación y supresión de sus datos, así como la participación de comunidades locales en la evaluación de los impactos colectivos de la minería de datos y de los sistemas de inteligencia artificial que influyan significativamente en sus condiciones de vida.
   
   

6. El diseño de plataformas digitales y sistemas de recomendación que operen en el territorio deberá respetar principios de Comunicación Viva y Bienestar Metabólico, evitando prácticas de manipulación sistemática de la atención, el miedo o el deseo que produzcan daños significativos a la salud mental individual y colectiva.
   
   

Suggested references (up to 8, with comments – ≥3 neuroscientific / psychological)

1. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
   Foundational analysis of how digital platforms capture behavioural surplus and turn it into prediction and control. It frames data extraction as a new form of economic power over behaviour.
   
   

2. Huckvale, K. et al. (2019). “Digital phenotyping: Ethical issues, opportunities and challenges.” BMJ.
   Discusses how smartphone and wearable data can be used to infer health states, including mental health, and raises ethical concerns about consent, ownership and exploitation of such intimate data.
   
   

3. Muhlhoff, R. (2021). “Automating the Social? Digital Phenotyping and Psychosocial Risks of Datafication.” Philosophy & Technology.
   Explores psychosocial risks of large-scale behavioural data collection and automated inference, reinforcing the idea that datafication acts directly on subjectivity and social relations.
   
   

4. Crone, E. A., & Konijn, E. A. (2018). “Media use and brain development during adolescence.” Nature Communications.
   Reviews how social media and digital environments tune adolescent reward and control systems. It supports treating digital design as a factor in neural development and mental health.
   
   

5. Meshi, D., Morawetz, C., & Heekeren, H. R. (2013). “Nucleus accumbens response to gains in reputation for the self relative to others.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
   Shows that social reputation gains (likes, approval) activate reward circuits, and that this activity predicts social media use. It underpins the idea that platforms are tuned to our neural reward systems.
   
   

6. Odgers, C. L., & Jensen, M. R. (2020). “Annual Research Review: Adolescent mental health in the digital age.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
   Summarises evidence linking heavy digital and social media use with mental health outcomes, especially in young people, and emphasises the need for protective environments.
   
   

7. Morozov, E. (2013). To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. PublicAffairs.
   Critiques the ideology that all social problems can be solved through data and algorithms, helping to conceptualise why municipal control and taxation are needed to counterbalance private digital power.
   
   

8. Barcelona City Council (2019). “Barcelona Digital City: A Roadmap for Technological Sovereignty.”
   Illustrates a real-world attempt to frame urban data as a commons and to build digital sovereignty at city level, supporting the idea of municipal governance and benefit-sharing from data.