Digital colonialism deals with the ethics of digitizing Indigenous data and information without fully informed consent.
Digital colonialism is the new deployment of a quasi-imperial power over a vast number of people, without their explicit consent, manifested in rules, designs, languages, cultures and belief systems by a vastly dominant power (Renata Avila, 2017). A new form of imperialism by technology conglomerates for commercial gains; academics and researchers to advance science, technology and research (Taiuru 2017).
Data colonialism is an emerging order for the appropriation of human life so that data can be continuously extracted from it for profit (Ulises A. Mejiasand Nick Couldry. 2019).
My interpretation of Digital Colonialism.
- A dominant culture enforcing its power and influence onto a minority culture to digitize knowledge that is traditionally reserved for different levels of a hierarchical closed society, or information that was published with the sole intent of remaining in the one format such as radio or print.
- A blatant disregard for the ownership of the data and the digitized format, nor the dissemination.
- Digital data that becomes the topic of data sovereignty.
- Digital and Knowledge workers who consult Indigenous Peoples to digitise their content and then digitise the content, but who fail to explain the power of technology and the risks including losing all Intellectual Property Rights.
- Conglomerates and government who use their influence to digitize data without consultation.
- A colonial view and approach to new Internet technologies such as New General Top Level Domain Names (GTLD) and Country Code Domain Names (CCTLD).
- Digital access where an ethnic minority are the majority digital divide stakeholders; often while their knowledge and resources are being digitised.
- Commercialisation of minority cultures CC TLD’s.
- Commercial entities paying translators to create new terminology for software and systems, then claiming ownership of the new terminology.
- Manipulation of search engine results to hide or change Traditional Knowledge.
One of the most remote Māori communities in Aotearoa gets broadband Internet says Te Karere. I suspect this will have a number of cultural implications that has yet to be considered.
Ruatahuna is not unique for this as it has happened numerous times in rural and urban areas by non Māori organisations and government pushing technology into communities with no understanding about tikanga or community needs.
In the Te Karere story, the most obvious concern expressed was about people not meeting in person any more in the Ruatahuna area. But a kaumatua stated that it would be ok as the world is changing. I agree with this part and think that Ruatahuna and any rural community that has the Internet introduced to it will adapt technology to allow for remote access to hui and maybe even tangi and a host of other uses. But just as the same kaumatua states, the world has come to Ruatahuna. I would say the world has been pushed into Ruatahuna with no considerations for the protection of the people.
While we have the organisation NetSafe who cater to protecting the public from cyber crimes, bullying etc, but NetSafe are not equipped to deal with tikanga Māori issues that occur online or even with Māori victims in a culturally sensitive manner.
The government appointed Nga Pu Waea (now defunct) whose objective it was to push broadband accessibility into Māori rural areas should have been the leader in this area, yet they had no consideration or understanding of the implications of technology on tikanga.
The national 2020 Communications Trust whose objectives it is to put computers in homes whose main families they support are Māori also has no understanding for technology abuse on tikanga Māori. The trust have had a positive impact on whanau employment and education while offering protection from some Internet nasties.
I fear that the youth of Ruatahuna and any other rural area in the same situation will face all of the same cyber issues of phishing, bullying, scams, fraud, sexting, pornography and manipulation and there will be no support for them, which is typical for anyone in the cities, but the remoteness and staunch tikanga Māori values could have more detrimental effects that are not yet known or perhaps research has already documented the effects from colonial impacts on our culture?
Ramblings
Digital Colonialism and issues of Indigenous knowledge on the Internet. When I have time, i will expand on these more.
- Digitising Traditional Knowledge is like mining the earth for precious metals. With every scoop of earth there is a void. Eventually there will be no mana or tapu with digital traditional knowledge.
- The Cloud is the next colonial ship in our harbour. Empty promises, confiscating laws and IP theft by governments and corporates.
- Software survives and is as useful as a disabled warrior. Data survives and is as useful as pounamu.
- Hackers are digital warriors. Some defend rights of their people , while others are just criminals.
- Electricity is like water. Once either has gone, there is nothing.
- Radio spectrum and Internet in today’s world are equivalent to digital land.
- We were once concerned about land being confiscated, but now we need to worry about data confiscation.
- ‘Not one more acre‘. 40 years on our leaders need to say “Not one more Terabyte”.
- Iwi are blind to the digital colonialism and confiscation of our traditional knowledge.
- Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more human like. If we keep digitising whakapapa and karakia, soon technology will recite whakapapa and karakia for humans.
- Siri is based in simple technology meaning that Siri could essentially say any karakia that has been digitised.
- Moko kauae and ta moko are increasingly being photographed by artists and wearers and put on social media. By doing so all IP and copyright is lost. We will see a surge of moko being used in international adverts.
- Racial profiling for directed marketing will soon be an issue with marketers directing sales and adverts that will further effect our culture. Facebook and other social media that offer free games such as “What do you look like” “who do i look like” and the thousands of others merely gather personal information about you that is then used to direct advertising to you.
- Māori statistical data is another form of government and academic digital colonialism. Ticking that you are Maori is not compulsory.
Hypothetical Māori Data Sovereignty issue with the Budapest Convention
New Zealand is consulting with the public re the Budapest Convention.
As a layperson of the law, I think the Budapest Convention is essential to protect our society. I also realise there is a grey area of Maori data sovereignty and co operating with law enforcement agencies.
The first concern is that as I have already discussed earlier, Māori consider their data is a taonga, a treasure. As a country that spends a significant amount of money repatriating Maori artifacts that are considered a taonga by Maori, it is an interesting point of discussion that the New Zealand Crown does not have any significant engagement with Maori regarding their digital taonga.
My advise is that you should always have a suitably qualified Indigenous perspective or perspectives available for any data related legislation, consultation, policies and strategies.
In terms of the Budapest convention there are some real risks of data being taken in an investigation and sent offshore. Marae are increasingly being installed with networks. One example could be a pedophile using a communal computer to share images offshore. Then a request is made for that server. Despite the fact the server is likely to have a significant amount of photos of families, sensitive business information and transactions and a vast amount of sacred information, who decides what is relevant and what is not? This situation is likely not to occur in a western situation.
Scenario 2 A real life example. Covid 19 app tracer
The world simply did not have a precedence for Covid19. No one will ever know if there was time and if Maori were consulted re the Covid 19 tracing app if the following issues could have been rectified.
An important lesson for all Indigenous Peoples, policy makers, legislators etc, is to work in partnership and create frameworks and partnerships in anticipation for any data driven system.
In this case, had Māori and government worked together earlier , the developers would have been alerted to some key facts ts not considered in the design:
- Data is stored in an AWS data center in Australia. While only some information is, this is still a concern for many Māori. Data Sovereignty issue.
- The registration process required an Internet connection.
- The system required one person per device with an email address. It is common for a digital device to be shared with one Maori family unit that consist of multiple generations.
- The system did not recognise NZ’s official language Māori in email address
- Based on govt data, Māori rank highly in domestic violence rates, yet there was no protection for such people in the app.
This has resulted in a number of communities of Māori who refuse to use the app and simply can not. Had consultation with Māori occurred early, and co-design this would not have been an issue.
4 thoughts on “Digital Colonialism”