Public Funding for International Workplace Limited

International Workplace is a market-leading digital learning provider, delivering certified and accredited training in the disciplines of health, safety and facilities management to public and private sector organisations in the UK and internationally. **One learner, one record** is a new project at International Workplace whose purpose is to address a critical problem in post-education learning -- poor data practice -- which limits the effectiveness of digital learning, constrains scale and ultimately restricts growth. The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 sought to regulate good data practice, but the current industry landscape is characterised by inconsistent records management, over-surveillance of employee performance data, and a weakening of learners' autonomy and data sovereignty. In a survey by the Institute for the Future of Work (Gilbert _et al._, 2021), a majority of workers were _'not at all confident'_ that they knew whether their employers used their data to assess or make predictions about their performance (67%, Fig.6); or why and for what purposes their employer collected data about them (52%, Fig.12). There is a risk that the ethical and societal impact of datafication is being overlooked in the development of new technologies. **One learner, one record** employs new technologies to treat each individual's record as sovereign to that individual, so they own their own learning engagement data which effectively transfers with them when they move from one employer to another. It gives them a say in the way their data is shared with their employer and allows them to potentially build a portable history of their learning for life. Utilising a combination of Web3 and smart contract applications, the project aims to redress the imbalance in power in the data relationship between employers and employees, while continuing to utilise machine learning solutions to personalise learning pathways and improve compliance.