Why this exists (necessity)
Before a thing can be governed it must be sayable. The book’s most portable gift is a vocabulary: six questions you can ask of any datum. This card puts that vocabulary on a single screen so it travels into meetings, design reviews, and procurement calls.
The problem it solves
Teams sense that “something is wrong with how we use this data” but lack the words to name it, so the concern dissolves. The card converts a vague unease into six specific, answerable questions.
Who it’s for (target audience)
Everyone who touches data decisions: product managers, engineers, privacy/legal, data scientists, and executives. Designed to be pinned, printed, or dropped into a wiki.
When to use it
At the start of any new data/AI initiative. During design and architecture reviews. Whenever someone says “but is this okay?”
The Artifact
Take any one record about a person. Ask it six questions.
1 - WHERE is it? In which country, on which servers, under which flag and every cache, copy, and derivative?
2 - WHEN was it and is the yes still alive? Under which version of which notice was consent given? Has it aged past what was agreed?
3 - WHY was it collected and is the why still alive? Has the purpose completed (loan decided, parcel delivered)? If so, why is the data still working?
4 - WHAT has it shaped? What models or decisions changed because this data passed through? If deleted tonight, what stays changed?
5 - In WHICH ROOM was it spoken? What were the norms of the context it was shared in and is it now being used in a different room?
6 - WHAT has it become? Which score, profile, embedding, or weight? At what exact point did it stop being the person?
+ 7 - WHOSE is it? Who else does this record disclose, implicate, or decide for, who never gave it?
Pocket vocabulary (use these terms aloud): consent with a date of manufacture and a half-life; purpose-death and the second life; the one-way door; the ghost in the weights; the room and its norms; the planks; custody vs employment; the created-data claim; provenance as a rights-carrier.
How to use it
Put it on the wall of the room where data decisions get made. When a proposal can’t answer questions 3-7, that’s not a reason to stop. It’s the precise specification of what to go build or document. The card’s job is to make the unaskable questions routine.
Back to the book
Foreword (“Six Questions”) and the Closing chapter (“you leave holding a vocabulary”). Each numbered question is one chapter. Follow the number to the chapter for the full argument and casefiles.