People’s Privacy

 *28 FEBRUARY 2024/POLITICS*

☕️ *MORNING BREW* ☕

*Protecting people’s privacy is essential to maintaining democracy*

6 Min Read

With personal data, platforms can create astonishingly detailed profiles of users including likes, dislikes, ideological leanings and habits. Such data can be monetised for personalised ads and micro-targeting.

*The Story*

The big data economy — powered by massive datasets and unprecedented levels of personal information — has fundamentally altered how a country conducts elections, and how people vote. The benefits to companies and political parties are as clear as the harms to people’s privacy.

With greater access to data, comes greater power to influence. Candidates contesting elections can bolster their campaigns through micro-targeting. They can choose from a range of engagement options like bulk SMS, audio call, social media. Voters are in the dark about such databases of personal information and their ability to consent to the collection and disclosure of data, and control how it is used, is out of the question.

The network effect is at the core of social media as we know it. It signifies the increase in the purported benefits to each user with the addition of more users. For instance, you are likely to join a platform that has a larger user-base to connect with more people and access more content. Such platforms will probably have better interactive features, and curation of services, shaped by analysis of a larger pool of users’ data. Enhanced collection of personal information makes business sense for social media platforms. Currently, it is practically impossible for an individual to know what information about them is being collected, discerned and used, and why.

With personal data, platforms can create astonishingly detailed profiles of users including not only relatively more discernible attributes like age, gender, location, but also the non-obvious ones such as likes, dislikes, ideological leanings and habits. Such data can then be monetised — by platforms or other entities scouring the data on platforms — by selling it or using it to offer services such as personalised ads and micro-targeting. For instance, after the 2016 presidential election in the US, consulting firm Cambridge Analytica claimed that it had 5,000 data points on each user, gleaned from millions of Facebook profiles, which it used to profile voters, micro-target ads and influence behaviour.

Political parties benefit from digital networks, including both social media and dedicated party-based apps with detailed information about supporters. These are useful for benevolent purposes like increasing awareness about their work and goals, and more insidious reasons such as targeting tailored content to influence groups on the basis of demographics and political leanings discerned from online activities. But where does this leave the people, whose privacy is invaded and whose data is used in opaque ways for commercial and political interests?

India’s data protection act has not yet come into force. Its critical flaws include absence of limitations on government’s powers to access data, lack of independence for the data protection board and absence of important actionable rights for individuals, such as the right to compensation. The imminent rules to guide the implementation of the act are an opportunity to mitigate the damage, and meaningfully protect privacy. Without the rules, there is still no data privacy framework — a particularly damaging situation as the country gears for elections. So they need to be implemented soon.

The limbo between the law being passed and enforced seems to have disadvantaged one stakeholder group in particular — the people. For instance, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Information Commissioner reportedly withheld information requested under the Right to Information Act, citing the Data Protection Act, which is in fact not in force. There is no Data Protection Board before which individuals can seek redress. Such instances exacerbate the harm to people’s privacy and right to information that the law must in fact serve to eliminate. The rules must prioritise the impact on people, who are at the centre of the information and data ecosystem but often get the short end of the stick.

The necessity for speed, however, ought not stamp out an inclusive and receptive consultation process. The Data Protection Act, which was rushed through Parliament without any debate, fails to incorporate the feedback of several stakeholders on effective protection of people’s rights and autonomy. It also seems to fall short of the best international regulatory practices. In the absence of meaningful amendments to the law — which, to be sure, should be the goal — the rules must apply correctives. Consultations must be a sustained process with opportunities for multi-stakeholder engagement.

The rules must provide for the independence of the Data Protection Board especially on how its members are appointed, and ensure strict checks and safeguards on the executive’s powers in this regard, even though this can fundamentally and reliably only be ensured through legislative changes. On data collection, storage and disclosure, the rules should mandate adherence with the principles of necessity, proportionality, purpose limitation and data minimisation.

This would help prevent burdening individuals disproportionately with the responsibility of protecting their rights under the pretext of consent. Sensitive data must be explicitly identified and must include financial, health-related, biometric, racial, ethnic, or genetic information, as well as official identifiers like Aadhaar and driving license numbers. Heightened security standards must apply to this data, and strict restrictions must be placed on their use, even by authorities. Algorithmic transparency from platforms is essential to scrutinise how personal data is used to decide who sees what online. Redressal mechanisms must be accessible and strengthened through enhanced actionable rights. And data protection impact assessments must be designed to prioritise rights, ensure transparency and enable public scrutiny.

Control over data is a key lever in the power structures of today’s information-driven world. A framework that empowers people to exercise agency over their personal data is, therefore, essential to correct power asymmetries which would otherwise seriously undermine people’s power in a democracy. A political party’s approach to people’s privacy, right to information, more broadly people’s role and position in the big data ecosystem, is reflective of its approach to constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms. As the country gears up for elections, this must be a metric on which the commitments of political parties in their manifestos and campaigns are judged. Digitisation is here to stay, but its benefits must not obliterate the need to develop inclusive and rights-based models that will be beneficial in the long run.

Challenges to privacy are pervasive. But an election time in a democracy amplifies these challenges and the potential damage to people’s rights as political and business interests intensify, impacting not only individuals, but the state of the democracy as a whole. A people-centric data protection regime that finally readjusts the balance that has so far tilted in favour of data fiduciaries in the private sector and government, is the key to unlocking the full potential of Digital India.

Article Courtesy:Namrata Maheshwari, Senior Policy Counsel at Access Now

*H[an]umanism*

 *H[an]umanism*

If one wants to enter heaven , at the point of entry you will be asked two questions . Unless you are one big Yes to these two questions , there is no entry for you. 

The first question is : Have you known joy in your life ? 

And the second question is : 

Have you given joy to those around you ? 

If your answer to these two questions is "Yes", I must tell you, you are already in heaven.

Can the BRICS have a common currency?

Read Time:5 Mins

Is a common currency for BRICS economies  a plausible idea? An explainer

The Story

India is amidst a tug of war. And what it means that it’s right in the middle, being pulled by two contrasting decisions.

Should it warm up to the idea of having a common BRICS currency?

Or, should it be indifferent to the whole idea of it?

So BRICS is simply an alliance of the world's developing economies. It was actually kickstarted by Brazil, Russia, India, and China back in 2006 because they felt intimidated by the dominance of goliath economies like Europe and the US. A few years later, South Africa jumped in, forming a global economic group that was determined to challenge the world’s wealthy economies. And now BRICS has expanded its membership with 5 more countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates) on board.

But the BRICS don’t want to only discuss how they can improve their trade relations. They want a common currency to rally around. Or at least, that’s what Russia wants.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, economies in the West slapped it with trade sanctions. They didn’t accept a bunch of goods from Russia and denied non-essential exports to the country. They even froze deposits and reserves the Russian government, companies and its citizens had with them so that they wouldn’t be able to withdraw and use this money to fund their war.

This obviously crippled Russia’s economy.

So Russia had a brainwave. It thought “Hey, what if we get the BRICS member countries to agree to a common currency? It could act as a global reserve currency. Why should currencies like the US Dollar have all the fun?”

You see, the US Dollar (USD) has dominated reserves worldwide since 1944. Most countries want to hold reserve money in the form of the USD simply because that’s the currency in which most global goods are traded. So if a country wants to buy or sell commodities like coal, gold or oil, it happens in the USD. Roughly 80% of global trade and around 60% of global reserves are held in USD.

The US pretty much controls everything!

So it seems like having a common currency for emerging economies is a great plan, right?

Okay, but why can’t these countries simply conduct trade using their local currencies?

Let’s take the example of Russia and India.

When Russia was locked out of the global financial system during the war, they started selling oil at a deep discount.  India jumped in and we consummated the transactions using Rupees.

But what would Russia do with billions of Rupees? The exchange only works if Russia has a massive need for Indian goods and services. It’s the only way they can put the Rupees to good use. And pretty soon, Russia didn’t want our Rupees anymore. They couldn’t use it to trade with other countries either because of certain restrictions.

So yeah, maybe a common BRICS currency makes sense for India too. And maybe that’s why the government seems amenable to even discussing it.

But hold on, we have to talk about the elephant in the room — China!

See, China has been trying to fight the USD’s global influence in every way it can. Over a decade ago it shouldered the responsibility of establishing the headquarters of BRICS’ New Development Bank at a swanky skyscraper in Shanghai. Think of it as a bank for funding infrastructure projects and handing over loans to emerging countries without having to bow down to the USD.

It even launched CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) its own global payments messaging platform that would challenge the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) as a global messaging system used to facilitate transactions between banks across national borders. As of 2023, SWIFT handled a mammoth $150 trillion in transactions per year, which is only set to rise at a fast clip. And since 7 out of 10 of these transactions happen in the USD and Euro, China’s instinct to challenge these currencies only gets stronger.

And some experts argue that moving to a common currency would benefit China. They’re the largest BRICS economy. Their yuan already has a place as a reserve currency. And at the end of the day, that means they’ll call the shots for a common currency.

What does that mean?

Well, let’s look at the Eurozone. It has taught global economies that common currencies can be a recipe for disaster simply because a single currency has to take care of monetary policies across different countries. When the Global Financial Crisis threatened the world economies in 2008, countries like Greece and Portugal suffered the aftermath in Europe. And that’s because countries like Greece needed to have more liquidity to repay debts. So the European Central Bank would simply have to print more money or take other steps that would help Greece. But that would hurt big economies like Germany where more money would mean skyrocketing inflation. So the big ones eventually called the shots.

India wouldn’t want such a situation, no?

But the bigger problem is — how will a bunch of economies across world borders, with really nothing in common even be able to work together? If you ask, Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who coined the BRIC acronym, he’ll say

It’s just ridiculous. They’re going to create a Brics central bank? How would you do that? It’s embarrassing almost.

So yeah, it does seem to be a far-fetched idea for now. And we’re not sure why the latest chatter says India is even considering it — unless maybe… they can get China kicked out of this plan?

Even that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Until then…

Money speaks. Listen with interest