To let data roam free or coop it up at home?

Cross-border flow is the basic life-blood of data. When information is isolated, it loses its potential to become knowledge and becomes increasingly vulnerable to breaches. Moreover, India might currently not even have the infrastructure to store its own data. More often than not, data is jeopardised by inadequate supporting infrastructure rather than malevolent threats.

A key issue on which India needs to make a decision is the approach to cross-border data flows. The ability to share and process data at lightning speeds is almost as important as the existence of the data itself.It is remarkable what information can achieve when collected and processed at a large scale. With the growth of 21st-Century technology, these possibilities have grown. For instance, because data can flow at unprecedented speeds, centres can analyse trends in real-time and provide insights that guide behaviour. Consider Google Maps, a software that collects information on a global scale, through remote sensors and can instantly count for changing directions, congestion, and solve to the minute for how much longer it will take from point A to point B. The sheer utility of Google Maps has made it essential to how we function on a daily basis.Just like Google Maps impacts the individual, sets of big data drive behaviours of industry and, indeed, entire sectors. A key reason why this model is able to function so efficiently is the nature of data. As a commodity, data can be shared at lightning speeds while managing costs. In the contemporary world, collecting and sharing information has become easier and more effective than at any point in history. It is a result of this that we have made our progress into “Industry 4.0”, and it is the driver that will help us bring about this revolution.However, this progress cannot be achieved without the freedom of accessibility that data aggregation requires. Pieces of information kept in isolation are not nearly as useful or efficient in comparison to what they can do together when combined and consolidated — the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When data is allowed to exist without borders, it has the added benefit of keeping costs down and allowing companies to spread out globally. Any curbs on this ability can have negative side effects for industry and the billions it benefits around the world.Unfortunately, that is a possibility India has been considering over recent years. Data localisation is the idea that data should be ‘localised’ or confined to national borders. Measures to achieve this can vary in their degree of severity. If considered in its most stringent form, localisation can prohibit data to leave national borders (generally there is a provision to make exceptions for special circumstances). When relaxed, localisation requirements might ask for companies to meet security adequacy standards when keeping an updated copy of the data domestically.This brings us to the broader question of why localisation measures in India are on the rise. The Reserve Bank of India released a circular early last year that called for localisation in the payments sector while a special committee, formed for designing recommendations on data protection, suggested localisation methods.Localisation is a trending topic in the Indian data space. So let us take a moment to examine why the government is taking the stance it is. The arguments presented in the central bank’s circular and the White Paper released by the Srikrishna Committee essentially boil down to the need for access rather than storage of data. Unfettered access to data is supposed to translate into more effective law enforcement. Localisation then is a method to enable this need for access. In addition, it would also protect India’s data from malicious foreign entities.While ensuring security and ease of access for Indian data is paramount, localisation might not be the best means to achieve that end. Because of the very nature of data, the physical location of where it may be stored does not govern who has access to it. There are different zones of jurisdiction depending on who the data belongs to. For instance, just because Facebook’s data centre might be located in Bangalore or Hyderabad, does not make it a property of the state or federal government(s). Moreover, even if placing the centres in India would somehow protect them from foreign surveillance (the fears are justified after Edward Snowden’s leak), it would render them more vulnerable to domestic threats. Moreover, more often than not, data is jeopardised by inadequate supporting infrastructure rather than malevolent threats. For example, a study by the Leviathan Security Group stated that in 2011 data was compromised because of a slow water drip in a nondescript office building in the Canadian city of Calgary. The lack of adequate infrastructure set off an explosion that caused days of computer outages for hospitals, ambulances, radio stations, taxis, and criminal justice facilities around the province. It is not easy to source and maintains the infrastructural requirements of data centres. Not only do they need to be completely free of even seemingly minor dysfunctions such as water drips, but data centres also need massive amounts of resources — electricity and water — to function. India might not have the infrastructural capacity to meet the requirements of setting up and maintaining data centres. A large percentage of Indians do not have access to electricity and there is an impending crisis for water.So, India still has a long way to go before it can meet the infrastructural requirements for setting up data centres of its own. Ultimately, for India, and for the sake of the larger narrative, localisation is not a means to achieve better data security. What it will do, instead, is increase costs for the industry while making global organisation tougher to manage. Curbing freedom of movement for data will impact the ability to progress, innovate, and allocate resources while sullying the experience for the end-user, the people.It should be noted that localisation was a key mandate of the BJP government before the elections. There is a widespread belief in the government that localising Indian data is the way to go. It complements the current administration’s ‘India First’ message. However, as far as cross-border data flows are concerned, localisation might not be the tool that helps India in the long or short term. With the reelection of the BJP, there is no reason to believe that the approach to cross-border data flows is likely to change. We can presume that the draft e-commerce policy, data protection bill, and the RBI circular will all enforce their version of localisation.The question is whether it will actually help keep data secure while harnessing the potential we know it possesses. As most experts on big data and AI will tell you, when it comes to data, it is always better to let it roam free.

The article was first published in The Hindu. Views are personal.

The folly of breaking up Big Tech

Further, breaking up these companies would significantly reduce the value consumers get due to the high interconnectedness of the products. A lot of the value that Google has seen in the Maps platform, for instance, comes from all the data that they have from Search. Customers also receive a lot of value from other Google products that are cross-subsidised from revenue earned in other products. YouTube, for instance, is widely believed to be non-profitable but is supported by revenues earned by other products.We would also have to stop and wonder how is it that one of the most integral parts of our lives — Google Search — is provided free of cost. Google can give the service for free because it can monetise it with advertising. If Google is broken up, this would no longer be possible. Breaking up any one of these services would give us substantially less valuable services.Breaking up these technology companies would also have a severe impact on innovation in the sector. As an article in Politico points out, “The top five spenders in research and development in 2017 were all tech companies. Amazon alone spent more than $22 billion. The development of autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and voice recognition wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as they are now if it weren’t for the work of Google and Amazon”. Investing in R&D and finally introducing them into the market is an expensive ordeal. However, big tech companies can afford to do so because of the nature of interconnectedness that exist within their products...Read the entire article 

Terrorism needs an audience. Facebook gave Christchurch shooter more than he asked for

To be effective, terrorism must have an audience. The New Zealand attackers simply used a GoPro and live streaming on Facebook while they carried out the massacre. With social media and the mobile internet, terrorists can not only reach a global audience, they can get their message across unfiltered. These, unfortunately, are near-perfect conditions for terrorism.When Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the terrorist who carried out the atrocity at two mosques in Christchurch last week, killing at least 50 people, streamed his act live on Facebook, he proved, yet again, that terrorism is theatre. Brian Jenkins, an early analyst of terrorism, argued in 1975 that in “the age of mass communications…terrorism is aimed at the people watching.”While some terrorists make specific demands — like seeking the release of their fellows — the strategic purpose of the terrorists’ actions is to draw attention to their political cause, widen their gross public support and enlist new followers. Terrorism is, as a 19th century political activist described it, “propaganda of the deed.”Read More

Without realistic rules, Election Commission can’t monitor social media before polls

The Election Commission has announced that it will closely monitor the social media campaigns of parties and candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It has enlisted the cooperation of Google, Facebook and Twitter to uphold “the integrity of the political campaigns on their platforms”. As much as the Election Commission must be commended for factoring in social media activities in its overall governance of the electoral process, it is unclear how effectively it can manage to do this.Even if a significant number — around 40 per cent in urban and 20 per cent in rural areas — of the 90 crore eligible Indian voters are on social media, let us be clear that tackling the regular offline issues during elections is far more important.Read More

Social Media and the Ghost of "Political Interference"

Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey was required to appear for a Parliamentary hearing earlier this month after being accused by social media users of bias against particular political views. He did not. As the conversation around social media, fake news, and online censorship gets intense in the run-up to the general elections, Anirudh Kanisetti asks whether these companies are really interfering with India’s political process, and what could be done about it.http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/feb/23/is-twitter-interfering-in-our-politics-1942592.html

Why India must worry about splitting the internet. Ask the Chinese

The cookie dropped yesterday. After weeks of suspense, the US government charged Huawei, a Chinese networking equipment manufacturer, with violating US sanctions and stealing trade secrets from its American partner. The specific charges apart, US officials have made no secret that the action has two broader dimensions — the ongoing trade war with China and the wider geopolitical contest for dominance in the Information Age.On the other side of the drama, last week Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, suddenly became inaccessible to users in China. A day or so later, just as mysteriously, it was back online. Now, unlike Google — which once decided to stay out of the Chinese market rather than accept censorship of its search results — Microsoft has made its peace with Beijing and Bing only throws up sanitised, party-approved hits. It commands a tiny share of the Chinese internet search market. Why Beijing would want to turn off an almost insignificant search engine — and a pliant one at that — is hard to fathom; even if the word has been put out that it was due to a ‘technical error‘ it is impossible to rule out political motives. Neither Microsoft nor the Chinese government has explained why Bing went down for a day.For many years, companies and governments would roll their eyes after incidents like this and concede that ‘that is the cost of doing business in China.’ It is only now that it is dawning on many Western countries, mainly the United States, that censorship is a feature that China has introduced on the internet. Furthermore, China has now acquired enough economic, political, and technological power to be able to shape the future of the internet in its own image, and according to its own interests. The Trump administration is waking up to this reality in alarm.Read more

As China Fights For Huawei, Should India Be Wary of Its 5G Entry?

After the Canadian government arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the founder of Huawei, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, upon an extradition request by the United States, relations between China and Canada have taken a nosedive.In barely concealed retaliation, China arrested two Canadians over the past month, and then summarily re-sentenced a third, a convicted drug smuggler to death. The official rhetoric from Beijing has become increasingly strident, like what we saw during the Doklam stand-off. Beijing has taken off its gloves and is baring its teeth.Such political aggression is part of President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, and the Chinese establishment might well justify the impatient, aggressive, gangster-like diplomacy as befitting a great power of its stature.Read more

Go Easy on Amazon and Flipkart

The FDI in e-commerce policy clarifications made by the DIPP was done in order to help the small retailers from getting exploited at the hands of the big e-commerce players. While it may help them in the short run, an atmosphere that is not conducive to investment in this sector is bound to hurt them in the long run.Both Amazon and Flipkart have planned to approach the government together to reconsider these provisions. If they fail to convince the government, they will shrink the size of their future investments. This can have a significant negative effect on the entire e-commerce sector and can lead to job losses due to the closing of their private labels. Not to mention the loss of the number of jobs they would have created by their extension plans. Cities in the US are fighting with each other to provide incentives and attract Amazon’s second headquarters, while the Indian government is driving away from the investment.Finally, the decision is bound to hurt the Indian consumers. By limiting the number of discounts given by the private labels, the consumers will have to pay a higher price for their purchases. It will also reduce the variety of goods that are available to the consumers for online purchases.Vertical integration can have anti-competitive practices but can be dealt with in a far more efficient manner than outright bans on such operations. Antitrust authorities across the world have tools to recognise and prevent practices that can hurt consumers and small retailers. The competition commission can be given the mandate to develop these tools and implement them instead of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.Finally, this would also be the right time to revisit the policy of not allowing FDI in multi-brand retail. The parochial fears of potential harm to small retailers are overplayed in the public discourse. All of the small retailers in question have benefited massively from the presence of these platforms. They are now able to reach an unimaginable number of customers because of the platform. Similarly, multi-brand retail can have a massive positive effect on economic growth and job creation.Read More

The three elements of China’s innovation model

In November 2018, the New York Times published a series that began with a story titled, The Land that Failed to Fail. The central argument of the piece is that defying Western expectations, the Communist Party has maintained its control in China while adopting elements of capitalism, eschewing political liberalisation, and pursuing innovation. The last of these three — innovation — is the subject of this piece.What drives innovation in China? This is not merely a question about the mechanics of policy, the might of capital, the determination of dogged entrepreneurs, or the brilliance that is conjured up in university dormitories. Increasingly, it is a question that has acquired geopolitical significance, not just in the context of power politics but also in the debate over fundamental values about the political and economic organisation. In other words, the question that China’s march towards becoming a “country of innovators” raises is whether a political system that prioritises control can foster genuine innovation.Answering this requires an understanding of the key elements of the Chinese model of innovation. To my mind, there are three key components of this model—state support, a systems approach towards the development of new technologies and businesses, and building an effective “bird-cage.” There are, of course, other factors like the pursuit of prestige, the desire to rebalance the economy, the need to enhance the effectiveness of governance, and the size of the consumer market, which supports innovation. But it is the first three components that form the key pillars of China’s innovation model.Read More...

Safeguarding Liberty Against Mobilised Violence

The Bulandshahr incident of December 2018 bears all the hallmarks of mobilised violence: an undisguised political purpose, backing from well-organised groups, and a disregard for the lives of civilians and police personnel alike. In addition to the loss of life and property, such violence undermines a state of liberty in the country. For the violence is often directed against a diversity of opinions, be it on grounds of religion, language, eating habits, caste, or any of the other aspects of our lives that set us apart from each other and that form the basis for our richly plural society. The principle of liberty requires us to respect these differences and to let individuals determine for themselves the way they want to live. Mobilised violence strikes against this principle. It prevents individuals from expressing themselves in the present through brute force and creates a chilling effect that prevents more expression in the future for fear of reprisal. This erosion of liberty leaves our society poorer.Any intervention to alter this status quo will not be an easy one. The change that is most needed is an enlightened citizenry, one that respects the liberty of others. After all, every individual acting as part of a mob has a choice to not engage in violence. We must move towards a society where more individuals make the right decision when faced with this choice.Read more

Understanding Witch Hunts

One of the signs of good literature is the ability to stay relevant with the passage of time. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, written in the 1950s, uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the paranoia surrounding Communism in the US after the end of the Second World War. It is a testament to the strength of the play that it resonates just as strongly in the world of today, with the fears around fake news and the targeting of individuals and communities.The play has a fairly straightforward narrative (minor spoilers to follow): a group of young women lie and claim that certain members of their town are indulging in witchcraft. This sets off a chain of events both absurd and scary, with the accused being presumed guilty until they either confess (leading to a loss of reputation and property) or refute the charge (leading to a death sentence).Read more

Token Security or Tokenized Security

There is a need to protect the data belonging to individuals in these situations, providing the government with two possible policy options: it can choose to either overhaul the Aadhaar architecture completely, or it can build in additional security measures to ensure that individual data is not compromised.

Uninventing Aadhaar is not a practical proposal. It would have to include repealing the statute on Aadhaar, disbanding the database already created, and figuring out alternative means of delivering the services that are now dependent on Aadhaar. A more sustainable way forward is to better secure Aadhaar. This will involve not only the secure collection and storage of personal data but also a safe regulation of the manner in which third parties use it for authentication.

Read more here.

What the GDPR Means for India

As the GDPR seeks to protect data users in Europe (and regions where the EU laws apply), it might not really make a difference to data users in India. However, this law extends to both citizens as well as non-citizens within the boundaries of the continent. So, if you have plans to travel to Europe, you have the added advantage of being covered by the protections under the GDPR as soon as you land there.On the other hand, the GDPR requires companies all over the world to comply with its provisions if they provide any goods or services anywhere in Europe, or in any manner monitor the behaviour of any individuals in Europe. This means that some Indian sectors such as information technology, the outsourcing industry, and pharmaceuticals might be hit by the GDPR. As the penalty for a contravention is up to 4% of the annual turnover of the company, this is not a trivial obligation for affected Indian data controllers.

However, the biggest impact of the GDPR for India is probably the indirect or the persuasive impact.

Read more here.

The Unique Challenge of a Data Protection Law

We started this Brainstorm still reeling from the sweet rush of the Supreme Court decision declaring privacy as a fundamental right in India. This was followed by the encouraging news of an Expert Committee working on a new data protection law. Things seemed to be moving in the right direction: individuals would be vested with certain rights with respect to their data, and there would be certainty in terms of what data collectors could and could not do with this data. But the past few months have shown that this is no easy task.One of the objectives of any law is to legislate for the future: to ensure that the law is durable and stands the test of time. With data protection, we are witnessing a situation where our needs are in the present and there is no guarantee that they will remain the same in the future. We are grappling with defining the problems we face and brainstorming about possible solutions at the same time, with understandably mediocre results.Take the ongoing Aadhaar case in the Supreme Court and the recent revelations of the data harvesting from Facebook by Cambridge Analytica. There is an urgent need for clarity on both fronts, and yet, none is likely to be available anytime soon. These two cases reflect several of the challenges highlighted by our participants over the past few months of our discussion. They showcase the fragility of consent in the data-rich world of today. They show that the scope for data protection is vast and there are people from all walks of life who will be affected by it. They stress the need to equip individuals with rights to their data that they can understand and exercise. And enveloping all this is the realisation that any regulation of the field must not be dogmatic and rigid, but instead be in the form of an enabling institution that endures.Read more here.

The Devil in the Details

A week ago, the Justice Srikrishna Committee released a draft Personal Data Protection Bill and a Report to go with it. This is another step in the progress that has been made in the past year to create a data protection framework for India. It started with the Supreme Court judgement that recognised privacy as a fundamental right. This was followed by the constitution of the Justice Srikrishna Committee, the release of a White Paper, and public consultations on the recommendations made under it.The Bill and the Report, which had been expected for the better part of six months, have already attracted a flurry of critical commentary. While there are elements of these documents which are welcome, there are also serious concerns that require further attention.One of the positive aspects of the proposed law is its attention to detail. It is comprehensive and ticks most of the boxes that a data protection law ought to have. It vests individuals with certain rights with respect to their personal data, imposes obligations on entities that collect and process such data, and envisages a regulatory infrastructure that is supposed to facilitate the ecosystem within which data is collected, processed, and transferred. The Bill is also applicable to State entities, which is an upgrade over the status quo.Read more here.

Fix call drops and sluggish speed before you think of regulating internet

India’s regulators work in mysterious ways. Take the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which has suddenly decided that it wants to regulate internet services. As its name clearly suggests, TRAI’s job is to regulate the telecommunications industry. These are the companies that own and operate the “pipes”, like fiber-optic cables, towers, base stations, satellite transponders, undersea cables, switches, and networks. TRAI also regulates companies that provide some basic services that run on these “pipes”, namely telephony and the internet.Like its counterparts around the world, it does not, thankfully, regulate services that run on these “basic” services. That’s why you don’t need to apply for a license when you set up a website or launch an app.Looking at TRAI’s ‘Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-Top (OTT) Communication Service’ that closed Monday, I’m left wondering just why would it want to introduce a digital licence-permit raj by asking whether “over the top” (OTT) services ought to be regulated, and if so, which ones and how.Read more

How to Regulate Internet Platforms Without Breaking Them

The biggest anticompetitive element of platforms is the violation of neutrality. When the platform, such as Amazon, also acts as a player on the very platform, it can lead to a conflict of interest. Once vertically integrated, the platform has an incentive to exclude competitors either directly by delisting competing vendors or indirectly through higher commission fees and manipulating the rankings.

Anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions of platforms also tend to go under the radar, as competition authorities normally make the decision to investigate cases according to a monetary threshold. However, the monetary value of a deal may not always highlight its anticompetitive effects. Stories of big technology firms acquiring small start-ups at bargain prices are quite common. The value of these start-ups could lie in the networks (user bases) or the data they possess. Thus, it would make sense for competition authorities to automatically review any deal that involves an exchange of certain forms (or a certain quantity) of data. If this principle had been in place, Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram would have come under greater scrutiny.

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India’s smartphone revolution is a phenomenon on the scale of Independence in 1947

Media headlines reporting research results often distort findings — substituting ‘newsworthiness’ for accuracy. The newsworthiness falls into two broad categories: “Whatever you thought you knew about this subject is completely wrong” or “research confirms what we knew to be right all along”. So, when a headline on BBC World this week announced that “a rising tide of nationalism in India is driving ordinary citizens to spread fake news”, we should wonder which of the two newsworthy categories it falls into.Unless you’ve been blissfully living under a rock somewhere without internet, the BBC’s principal claims aren’t too surprising: A lot of fake news that is circulated seeks to promote pride in national identity; Right-wing networks are better organised to push such narratives; and finally, there is “overlap of fake news sources on Twitter and support networks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.Now, your decision to believe and forward a particular tweet, image, or text message depends on four things: What you believe must be true (conditioning and bias); what you’ve said about it in the past (history); what others in your groups are saying (social proof); and what someone you respect says (authority). Your “fast brain” processes all of this in less than a second, and your fingers do the forwarding immediately after. You don’t look for evidence, you don’t look for counter-claims, and very often, you don’t even reflect on what you’ve read and forwarded. In fact, you don’t use the “slow brain” at all, because you’ve scrolled down and moved on to the next message. Don’t feel bad. You are not alone. Most of us are like that.Read more

The Answer is Blockchain

This is the third edition of The Jobscape, our fortnightly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, Industry 4.0 holds a lot of hope for the future of jobs.Read more 

Empowerment and Fragility

Zeynep Tufecki’s book, Twitter and Tear Gas, is an insightful analysis of the impact of social media on protests and social movements in today’s radically networked societies.

Most of the commentary about the role of social media in creating political communities either glorifies these media platforms (think Arab Spring) or vilifies them for their propensity to spread fake news and to create echo chambers (think Trump’s election campaign). Zeynep Tufecki’s book, Twitter and Tear Gas, however, provides a much-needed nuanced analysis on how digital platforms have altered the way in which a social movement’s dynamics play out. With the aim of understanding the challenges and strengths of digital activism, Tufecki tells a fascinating story of how social media empowers protests while simultaneously also exacerbating the fragilities of these movements.It is well known by now that the primary strength of networked public protests is the speed with which a large number of people and resources can be mobilised. This is because social media makes it easy to find people who share your political viewpoints even across geographical boundaries. What is not obvious, however, is that the speed and ease of participation also become a weakness of the networked movements. This is because ad hoc planning doesn’t allow for building capacities among protesters, which is needed to sustain a movement in the long-term. Often this results in the networked movements facing a tactical freeze in the face of changing circumstances.Read more here>