THE MAKINGS OF A DIGITAL PANOPTICON https://tatsatchronicle.com/the-makings-of-a-digital-panopticon/ Srinivas Kodali
The Government of India, over the past decade, has been building information, digital, platform, and surveillance infrastructures such as Aadhaar, UPI, Digital Locker, GST Network, and various other digital platforms or stacks to power a data economy. The core idea behind this centralised digital infrastructure is to collect all the data of citizens and share it with the private sector to turn us into consumers...
A data protection law is on the way and is supposed to offer some comfort to citizens in this data economy. It is supposed to safeguard our interests and put in some checks and balances in the data economy. But I do not share this optimism due to a range of factors, as the data protection law is more about the economy and not about citizen rights anymore. It protects the data that has already been forcefully collected from us, whether it is Aadhaar or our financial or health data to be stored in databases protected behind 13-foot walls. There is no choice but to share your data with the government, which retains the discretion to do whatever it wants. This is one reason for the lack of a precise definition of ownership over personal data by the government.
The government and the Indian IT sector are promising to empower citizens through data, by forcefully taking it away from them. In reality, it’s disempowering them in the process.