What is data colonisation and why it matters to us in India

Colony (n) is a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country.Data Colonisation (n) is a process by which a central system of power dominates the surrounding land and its components.

By those definitions, neither India nor any region of it is a colony of a dominant society, community or country anymore. However, India and its population is no longer a nation that is defined by its physical presence alone either. We are all living our lives within the geographical boundaries of India and within the virtual boundaries of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Airbnb, Uber, and hundreds of other mobile apps.

Our lives today are as much about our physical being as they are about our data. The only difference is that while we are conscious of our physical lives, we are seldom aware of how our data is being used by its custodians, which may not necessarily be a government but could very well be a multinational company based in a developed country.

When an individual lives within the territorial boundaries of a country, the latter is expected to safeguard the former’s identity, information, and privacy. However, who guarantees the same when lives (and their data) are no longer restricted to geographical boundaries but co-exist at multiple virtual locations in a 'connected world'? More importantly, how much control do they have over their identity and data? As more and more individuals go online and more and more information is turned digital, a strong race to compete for the ownership of data will be visible, if traces of it are not visible already. And the strength of the "coloniser" would be judged by the vastness of the data "colonised".

Let’s take the example of Facebook. Although it is not a country, the American company holds data, including personal and private information, of more than 150 million Indians. In this sense, India could very well be a colony of the popular social networking site, which not only holds our personal information but also tracks our daily routine, habits, behaviour, and communication. This extent of information about 150 million Indians is enough to help the social networking giant influence decisions, both democratic and consumerist, taken by individuals. All this is already visible today. Facebook is influencing individual choices when it comes to what product they are buying next or which party will they vote for.

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