Data ownership is a hot topic these days, as consumers become more concerned about the way their information gets shared with third parties.

In fact, data security is so high on consumers’ priority list, that 28% of them are ready to give up wine forever, if that would guarantee protection of their financial information, according to a recent study by World First.

So, should customers have full ownership of their data? It depends on the kind of data, according to Mike Cook, CEO of XOR Data Exchange.

“You can’t just say this is the information that consumers own, or this the information that the bank owns,” he said at DataDisrupt event last week.

There are two kinds of data that the FIs gather from consumers, according to Cook, whose company develops permission-based data exchange platform for financial services.

“The first is PII [personal identifiable information], so things like my name, my address, email, or phone number — so what makes up the consumer. And if a consumer says that I don’t want that out there, even if it is correct reporting, they should be able to take it off,” he said

The second kind of information is experiential: data on payments, shopping habits, and other behavioral aspects. “That information, I think, is owned by the one who creates the data, whether it’s the bank, or the card issuer, or the wireless career,” Cook explained. “Banks can’t pass on my information, if they can’t match it to my PII, but if I am the bank, and someone is asking me for that financial data, I think I should be given the right to decide.”

This decision-making would apply even to the consumers, asking for their own financial data.

“If a consumer wants the data to better manage their financial lives, that’s good for the bank, but if they want the data to switch lenders, as a bank I wouldn’t want the data to go out there,” he said. “I invested in that consumer to get the data, and it shouldn’t be used to steal away from me. So FIs should be allowed to set permissions on what the data can be used for.”