Is data colonialism on the way now?

Bengaluru: Over reliance of data-driven technologies will lead to data colonialism across the world with the government and corporations controlling the voice of the people. This was the opinion of globally acclaimed author and public intellectual, Yuval Noah Harari at the IT industry body Nasscom's flagship event Nasscom Leadership Summit 2022 on Thursday.

"The two biggest problems with big data are at national and global levels. The danger on the national level is that a few groups be the governments or large corporate monopolies may use it to create unequal societies or totalitarian regimes," Harari said.

"For the first time in human history, it is possible to follow everybody all the time and to know a person better than the person himself," he added.

In global history, there was never a period when the dictators, tyrants or big corporations had all the data of general people because of lack of technologies. However, data-driven technologies are making it possible now.

Harari also emphasized that in the 21st century, one country need not send in its soldiers to conquer another nation; all it needs to do is take out the data of its leaders and its people.

Imagine a situation wherein China or the US has the entire personal records of a country's politicians, journalists, judges, military leaders and begins to judge them by the jokes they crack and the diseases they struggle with. Then it will no longer be an independent country but a data colony," Harari said.

"So, the way out is to have an equal level of surveillance in a two-way manner. In short, technology should not be allowed to be used to collect data for control but for bettering each one's lives," he added.

The information war is for real as seen in recent time with many countries spying on other nations by collecting more data about that nation. Similarly, nations are also spying on their own citizens who have critical views on the establishment.

To avoid such scenario, India is currently working on a data privacy bill that will make it obligatory on the part of companies and government agencies to take the consent of user before collecting any data. Also, taking into account the information security of financial sector, the Reserve Bank of India has made it a mandate to store Indian data within its shore. However, the country is still lacking a comprehensive regulation like European Union's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) with regard to safeguarding privacy and confidentiality of the citizens.