The
place of individuals and the control of their data have emerged as central
issues in the European data protection regulation. The 'empowerment' of the
individual has notably resulted in the recognition of a new prerogative for the
individual: the right to the portability of personal data. The corollary of
this new right is the design and deployment of technical platforms, commonly
known as Personal Cloud, Personal Server or PIMS, allowing the individual to
consolidate all his or her data in a single system managed under his or her
control. On the strength of these technical and legal innovations, several
questions arise: what forms of empowerment are targeted in practice? What are
the appropriate conditions to guarantee the objective pursued? At the
crossroads of these questions, one dimension appears to be insufficiently
exploited: that of 'agentivity'. This article transposes this notion from the
social sciences to the management of personal data, and opens up a new reading
of the empowerment measures of Big Data functionalities on personal data.