Who Owns Your Data When You Can't Speak for Yourself? Designing for Data Sovereignty When Consent Isn't Straightforward

TOPIC:

Who Owns Your Data When You Can't Speak for Yourself?

Designing for Data Sovereignty When Consent Isn't Straightforward

Digital and Data Sovereignty has wide ranging implications for nations, companies and individuals.

For young people, people with disabilities, and institutionalized individuals, the aged, dementia patients, etc., someone else often controls their data on their behalf, whether it's a parent, guardian, caseworker, or institution. This talk explores what happens when we apply established usability heuristics to that reality: how do we design for visibility, comprehension, and control when the person whose data it is and the person acting on it aren't the same?

I'll walk through real UX failures in current systems, propose heuristic-based redesigns, and close with a practical checklist for designing data sovereignty into products that serve these populations.

I'll also include a case study from my own work as the lead UX designer on the FSCD (Family Support for Children with Disabilities) assessment tool at the Government of Alberta, drawing on firsthand lessons from designing for this exact population.

Speaker:

Saida Barre, Founder, BITO Lab

A product innovation studio helping tech founders and product teams build the right thing — before they spend months building the wrong one.

Saida focuses on helping large and small organizations, modifying thinking of established organizations and improving startup companies in the UX designs. She specializes in overcoming the gap between a great idea and designing a product people actually want. Through structured validation, UX research, and design thinking methodology, she gives founders the tools, frameworks, and hands-on support to test their riskiest assumptions early — replacing guesswork with evidence.

Other activities in October, November and December

1. SummerSale25 (A 25% discount code for our November 4-7 Conference) - discount ends August 31.

2. Oct 22 - Monthly meeting - Data Management and the changing role of data governance and AI Governance.

3. Dec 2, 2026 Monthly meeting - Pre-Christmas Social & Networking Event.