Making corporate data accessible for public-interest research: A consent-based access mechanism

While privacy regulations such as the GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA are vital for safeguarding individual rights, the interaction of legal uncertainty, corporate risk management, and restrictive data-sharing practices can, in practice, constrain public-interest research more severely than some commercial uses of data. Academic researchers, operating under strict ethical oversight, non-commercial mandates, and long-standing traditions of responsible data stewardship, can nevertheless face substantial barriers to granular data needed for addressing urgent societal challenges. Unlike tech companies, researchers lack the infrastructure to collect large-scale data passively through consumer-facing platforms; there is no app or service from which research data naturally flows as a byproduct of user interaction. Meanwhile, private technology firms often retain greater practical capacity to collect, analyze, and monetize sensitive user data within their own data infrastructures. This paper argues for a targeted regulatory reform: the introduction of an Institutional Research Use Only consent mechanism that would allow appropriately safeguarded data sharing between tech companies and accredited academic institutions under strict governance. Such a mechanism would resolve the asymmetry between ethical intent and regulatory burden, empowering public-good science without compromising user privacy.