THE CONTEXT: The government of India has been collecting a myriad of data from various sources and using them for multiple purposes. But hardly these data are shared with the citizens or placed in the public domain. It is also seen that many critical data have not been either published or delayed. This creates a digital divide between the state and the citizenry having implications for governance, privacy, and accountability. This article analyses these issues in detail.

HOW IS THE DATA BEING COLLECTED BY THE GOVERNMENT?

The government collects the data of citizens through various mechanisms that it uses for multiple purposes. The Census, the sample surveys by the NSS, the expenditure surveys, the survey on industries, family, labour, etc., are some ubiquitous instruments for data collection. The govt also collects regular administrative data while providing services to the citizens like licensing, permits, provision of records, etc. Since 2014, the UIDAI and Aadhaar systems have been expanded in scope, and the government is able to collect the biometric and demographic data of people on a large scale. However, there are many grey areas in this whole process having implications for democracy itself.

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EFFICIENT DATA MANAGEMENT?

EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY MAKING:

• In government, the most traditional use of data analysis has been the statistical analysis of data collected through various surveys, Census, indices, etc.
• In the traditional methodology, the insights generated from the analysis of the available data were provided to government authorities for effective policy formulation or planning of new programmes, and schemes as well as preparation of the budget for the government.
• For instance, data is at the core of many flagship programmes such as Swachh Bharat Mission, Housing for all, One Nation One Ration Card, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, and Fertilizers Distribution, to name a few.

INFORMED DECISIONS BY STAKEHOLDERS:

• The data on various sectors of the economy like employment, consumption expenditure, investment, etc. is crucial for business groups and investors to make informed decisions.

DRIVER OF DIGITAL ECONOMY:

• In this 21st century of Digital Transformation, data is the new oil; data is the new fuel, and data is the oxygen that holds immense untapped potential in it.
• Over a period, data has emerged as an important asset for the development of any country and is also the driver for a digital economy.
  

TARGETED APPROACH TO SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:

• The prowess of data influences almost every sector of the socio-economic development of our country.
• For instance, data can prove to be highly useful for the formulation of poverty alleviation schemes and subsidy distribution schemes.
• Various schemes of the government, such as the MGNREGA, Pensions Scheme, Farmers Subsidy, Benefits for unorganized labour, Scholarships, etc. can make use of data analytics to identify the right beneficiary, understand their socio-economic status, and use technology solutions for timely dissemination of benefits, etc

APPLICATION IN DIVERSE FIELDS:

• Fields like Criminal Justice and Judiciary can consume data to analyze crime patterns, locate the criminal networks and hotspots of potential crimes, etc.
• This would help the authorities take corrective measures and prevent such incidents from happening.
• Data is precious in fraud prevention also.
• Many financial systems today employ data to detect fraudulent activities, and it is now suggested to integrate a fraud detection module while setting up any financial system.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT AND COVID-19 PANDEMIC:

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, data has been extensively used for contact tracing, prediction of hotspots, trend analysis, and taking appropriate measures to curb the spread of the virus.
• Data was also used for the management of hospitals and the supply of essential medicines and essential goods to citizens at large.

DATA AND DEMOCRACY:

• Access to the data by citizens is critical for a healthy and informed public discourse on issues of policy relevance.
• The mere fact that people have access to data is likely to pressurize the government to improve performance in many areas.
• However, data generation doesn’t guarantee seamless access to people whose lives matter most in a democracy.
• Informed public discourse in any democracy is critical for accountable and transparent governance.

OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA (OGD) PLATFORM INDIA – AN OVERVIEW

WHAT IS IT?:

• The Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India (https://data.gov.in) has been set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in compliance with the Open Data Policy (NDSAP) of India.
• The objective of the policy is to provide proactive access to government-owned shareable data along with its usage information in open/machine-readable format through a wide area of the network across the country.
• This data,  periodically updated, will be shared within the framework of various related policies, rules, and acts of the government.

PART OF DIGITAL INDIA:

• Developed using Open Source Stack, the project is one of the initiatives under Pillar 6 (Information for All) of the Digital India initiative.
• It facilitates community participation for further development of the product with Visualizations, Alerts, etc.
• It has an easy-to-use and user-friendly interface with dynamic/pull-down menus, search-based reports, secured web access, a bulletin board, etc.

EFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND CITIZEN COLLABORATION:

• The platform reflects how the innovative use of information technology has led to a paradigm shift in accommodating the huge data potential of the country.
• The platform has a rich mechanism for citizen engagement, which could help Ministries/Departments/Organizations prioritize the release of Government Datasets.
• Besides enabling citizens to express their need for specific datasets or apps, it also allows them to rate the quality of datasets and seek clarification or information from nodal officers of participating government entities.

THE SALIENT FEATURES OF THE OGD PLATFORM

• Ministry/Department/State contributes/publishes resources in open format either directly or by Web Services through workflow-based Data Management System.
• Provides single window access to the datasets and apps published by different Ministries/Departments/Organizations/States in open format. –
• Suggestions and requirements of data can be submitted by citizens/ community to help prioritize data sharing by participating ministries/ departments. Anyone can endorse already submitted suggestions.
• People can directly write to Chief Data Officer seeking any further clarification/information on the released resources or related requirements.
• The platform enables better discovery and usage of Government datasets through visualizations and development of apps, mash-ups, etc. Visualization Platform with the facility to create maps as well as different chart options like radar, bar, line, area, pie, column, etc.
• A separate Community portal (http://community.data.gov.in) has been launched to provide a common platform for knowledge sharing through discussion and contribution through Blogs, Infographics, Visualizations, etc., using data available on the platform.
• People can rate the resources (datasets/apps) on three aspects i.e. Quality, Accessibility, and Usability on a scale of 5.
• A separate Event portal for management of workshops, hackathons, challenges, etc. has been created.

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE NDSAP AND OGD

• A large volume of existing government data is still not accessible in digital formats. NDASP is still a policy but not a mandatory policy. As a result, a lot of departments are reluctant or slow to share their respective datasets.
• ​Even when data is made available in a machine-readable format, in most cases, the reliability is questionable; the raw data needs to go through rigorous editing and aggregation before it can be used.
• Different departments collect and collate information in their respective silos using diverse formats and terminology, making it tough to use that data effectively.
• Adoption of data sharing at the state level has also been slow, with only four out of 29 Indian states contributing data to the national portal.
• The granularity of open government data in India has been a concern, as it fails to satisfy the users to access and use only micro-level data.
• The unavailability of official map data due to the conservative map policy of the government and lack of interoperability in sharing this data has discouraged a discourse about better planning, tracking progress in the ‘real space’ and pushing the government to take remedial steps.

DATA PRODUCTION AND GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE-AN ILLUSTRATION

CONSUMPTION SURVEY AND PERIODIC LABOUR FORCE SURVEY:

• The data produced by the government’s statistical wings, which have a reputation for being independent and credible, can be used to assess the effectiveness of state policies.
• Recent events, however, have severely harmed this perception. Data from the 2017-18 consumption survey, for example, has yet to be released.
• The survey’s leaked summary results reveal some troubling facts that may not be politically reassuring to the government.
• Similarly, the first Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS 2017-18) was not made public until after the 2019 general election.

REPLACING THE ANNUAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIES:

• Furthermore, rather than relying on the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), a systematically designed survey for estimating industrial sector GDP, the government has begun to rely on self-reported, unverified data submitted to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs since 2011 obscuring the true state of Indian industry.
• The future of this database is uncertain now that ASI is nearly obsolete for official estimation purposes.
• To date, the ASI is the most dependable and comprehensive source of data for research on industrial productivity and regional patterns.

DATA ON SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN MISSION:

• Another example of undermining the scientific database is the delay in the release of Water and Sanitation Survey data 2018.
• The prime minister declared India open defecation free in October 2019, while the data was released much later, depriving people of an opportunity to assess the status of the Swachh Bharat mission in a scientific manner.

RESIGNATION OF OFFICIALS:

• The autonomy of statistical agencies is compromised for immediate political gains at the cost of sustainability and the quality of democratic governance.
• This is seen in the manner of restructuring the NSO and the resignation of top non-official members from the National Statistical Commission.

OTHERS:

• The government’s refusal to conduct a  caste census, a migrant survey, poverty enumeration, controversy over the death count during the pandemic, etc are some other instances that reflect very poorly on the state of the Indian data ecosystem.

DATA AND DEMOCRACY-AN ANALYSIS

Democracy is the government by consent, and this consent requires reliable and authentic information that enables the citizens to make an informed choice at the ballot box. Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of a functioning democracy and the elections cannot be held to be free or fair if the citizens are deprived of real and real-time data on the government, political parties, and the administration, among others. Democracy is also a form of accountable government, and accountability demands access to what the government is doing and how it is doing it. This is necessary for ensuring answerability and the rule of law. In fact, in a democracy citizens are the masters and the government, the servant, and philosophically put, the master has the full right to know what the servant is doing or not doing. This is the spirit in which the freedom of information legislations are being brought by nations. Additionally, the notion of privacy has assumed huge significance, which is being expanded by progressive jurisprudence like India’s Puttaswamy judgment. It is also true that the government should have some elbow room to maneuver with respect to the collection and keeping of sensitive data dealing with national security. But, in other cases, the policy of the government should be based on open data access which will have inherent and instrumental benefits for democracy.

THE POWER OF DATA- THE NEWZEALAND CASE STUDY

The key to the New Zealand government’s success is that it treats data as a strategic asset committed to igniting proactive information sharing to drive better decision-making.

A great example is how accurate diabetes data has helped the New Zealand Ministry of Health provide appropriate and timely care. New Zealand’s Ministry of Health found it difficult to accurately estimate the number of cases in the country since there was no consistent data collection across all general practices and hospitals. With the help of data analysis capabilities, the ministry created a register to accurately predict the prevalence of the condition and help design effective public health policies to support quality clinical improvements.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health was able to integrate information from six different data sources and use Advanced Analytics to identify both those with diabetes and those with the highest prevalence rate. These insights enabled the Ministry of Health to focus its policies on the health policies for these groups.

The exceptional work done by the New Zealand government is being copied around the globe as governments everywhere are looking to provide similar results to their citizens. In fact, the Ontario Government has pledged its “commitment to the people of Ontario to engage, collaborate and

innovate” as it looks to build a “government that freely shares information, unlocks the power of data in a digital age, and brings more voices to the decision-making table through its Open Ontario initiative.

As the New Zealand government has demonstrated, analytics can help save money, drive efficiency, and improve citizen services, all while protecting sensitive data. The possibilities are truly endless; however, the power of analytics can only be unleashed once governments realize the importance of information sharing to enrich the lives of citizens and transform the way the government is run. And that starts with breaking down the culture of data ownership and building a proper infrastructure to securely manage data as an asset.

THE WAY FORWARD

• The government needs to ensure the independence of the statistical agencies and also should timely conduct and release the crucial data even though the results may not be politically palatable.
• The Open Data Policy needs to be implemented in letter and spirit for good governance and participative democracy.
• There must be a comprehensive data protection law in place to protect citizens’ privacy and to prevent India from being slid into a surveillance state.
• RTI is one of the best tools for distributing and sharing data the government has, and the governments should suo motu put these data in the public domain.
• Lack of access to data can increase the distance between the governors and the government, which will have serious consequences on the outcomes of policies and can hamper developmental objectives.
• Various researches also suggest that much of the data is still not analyzed and has huge untapped potential. One of the major challenges right now is the fact that data is currently residing in silos, and thus to unleash the true potential of this data, various IT systems must collaborate and operate in a symbiotic fashion.
• There are certain challenges that are currently preventing these opportunities from being tapped. Issues of privacy and data anonymization are a concern. There is also a lack of standardization of data collection formats that makes it difficult to aggregate and make sense of data The infrastructure to support efficient data collection, processing, and management needs to be strengthened.
• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), on February 21, 2022, released a policy proposal titled “Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022”. The policy aims to “radically transform India’s ability to harness public sector data and aim to sell it to the private sector. This can be the beginning of sharing government-owned citizens’ data with relevant stakeholders. Although the market mechanism may be questionable, so is privacy concerns.

THE CONCLUSION: Data is emerging as the key resource of a Digital Economy. Citizens, organizations, and society at large will benefit from the democratization of data as it will become usable to anyone to derive insights and build inclusive solutions for the development of our society. However, the government, while harvesting the citizens’ data for better governance, should not monopolize it and must share them with people, which will improve democratic outcomes in the true sense.

QUESTIONS:

1. Data is the lifeblood of a democratic government. Comment
2. What is an Open Government Data Platform? How far do you agree with the view that democratizing data ownership will help in improving governance outcomes?
3. Critically analyse the relationship between data and democracy.

THE CONTEXT: In April 2022, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) presented a Performance Audit Report on ‘Functioning of Unique Identification Authority of India’. This Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India contains significant observations and recommendations emanating out of the Performance Audit conducted on ‘Functioning of Unique Identification Authority of India’.

This article explains the findings and recommendations by the comptroller and Auditor General of India in its recent report.

KEY POINTS ABOUT THE AUDIT REPORT

• The Performance Audit included an assessment of the Enrollment and Update Ecosystems as well as the Authentication Ecosystems of the UIDAI for the period from 2014-15 to 2018-19.
• Audit scrutinized the processes beginning right from the enrollment up to the delivery of Aadhaar number and subsequent use of the authentication services.
• The systems put in place for maintaining security and confidentiality of data were also subject to audit examination.

About Unique Identification Authority of India

• The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”) on 12 July 2016 by the Government of India, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
• Purpose: UIDAI was created to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named “Aadhaar”, to all residents of India.
• The UID had to be:
• robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and
• verifiable and authenticable in an easy, cost-effective way.
• As of 31 October 2021, the Authority has issued 131.68 crore Aadhaar numbers to the residents of India.
• Under the Aadhaar Act 2016, UIDAI is responsible for Aadhaar enrollment and authentication, including operation and management of all stages of the Aadhaar life cycle, developing the policy, procedure, and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals, and performing authentication and the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.

UNDERSTANDING THE KEY FINDINGS OF THE REPORT

NO DOCUMENTS FOR PROOF OF RESIDENCY:

• The Aadhaar Act stipulates that an individual should reside in India for 182 days or more in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application for being eligible to obtain an Aadhaar.
• In September 2019, this condition was relaxed for non-resident Indians holding valid Indian Passport. However, UIDAI has not prescribed any specific proof/ document or process for confirming whether an applicant has resided in India for the specified period and takes confirmation of the residential status through a casual self-declaration from the applicant.
• There was no system in place to check the affirmations of the applicant. As such, there is no assurance that all the Aadhaar holders in the country are ‘Residents’ as defined in the Aadhaar Act.

DE-DUPLICATION PROBLEM:

• The uniqueness of the identity of the applicant, established through a de-duplication process, is the most important feature of Aadhaar.
• It was seen that UIDAI had to cancel more than 4.75 lakh Aadhaars (November 2019) for being duplicates.
• There were instances of issues of Aadhaars with the same biometric data to different residents indicating flaws in the de-duplication process and issues of Aadhaars on faulty biometrics and documents.
• Though UIDAI has taken action to improve the quality of the biometrics and has also introduced iris-based authentication features for enrollment for Aadhaar, the database continued to have faulty Aadhaars, which were already issued.

ISSUE OF AADHAAR NUMBERS TO MINOR CHILDREN:

• Issue of Aadhaar numbers to minor children below the age of five, based on the biometrics of their parents, without confirming the uniqueness of biometric identity goes against the basic tenet of the Aadhaar Act.
• Apart from being violative of the statutory provisions, the UIDAI has also incurred an avoidable expenditure of ₹310 Crore on the issue of Bal Aadhaars till 31 March 2019.
• The UIDAI needs to review the issue of Aadhaar to minor children below five years and find alternate ways to establish their unique identity, especially since the Supreme Court has stated that no benefit will be denied to any child for want of an Aadhaar document.

DEFICIENT DATA MANAGEMENT:

• All Aadhaar numbers were not paired with the documents relating to the personal information of their holders, and even after nearly ten years, the UIDAI could not identify the exact extent of the mismatch.
• Though with the introduction of online scanning (July 2016), the personal information documents were stored in CIDR, which stands for (Classless Inter-Domain Routing)the existence of unpaired biometric data from an earlier period indicated deficient data management.

NO DATA ARCHIVING POLICY:

• UIDAI maintains one of the largest biometric databases in the world; but does not have a data archiving policy, which is considered to be a vital storage management best practice.

LACK OF MONITORING SYSTEM:

• UIDAI had not effectively monitored funds released to States as Grants-in-Aid towards ICT assistance for creating infrastructure.

ISSUES IN THE GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL SYSTEM:

• The process of capturing grievances/complaints have not been streamlined and does not display a clear picture for analysis.
• The complaints lodged at the RO (Registered Organizations) level did not get the attention of UIDAI HQ, compromising the effectiveness of the grievance redressal mechanism, besides the delays in the settlement of grievances.

INEFFECTIVE DELIVERY SYSTEM:

• UIDAI’s arrangements with the Department of Posts were not adequate to guarantee delivery of Aadhaar letters to the right addressee, as seen from the large number of Aadhaar letters being returned as undelivered.

RECOMMENDATIONS BY COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL OF INDIA

PRESCRIBE A PROCEDURE FOR SELF-DECLARATION:

• UIDAI may prescribe a procedure and required documentation other than self-declaration in order to confirm and authenticate the residence status of applicants, in line with the provisions of the Aadhaar Act.

TIGHTEN THE Service Level Agreements (SLA) PARAMETERS OF BIOMETRIC SERVICE PROVIDERS (BSPS):

• UIDAI may tighten the Service Level Agreements (SLA) parameters of Biometric Service Providers (BSPs), devise foolproof mechanisms for capturing unique biometric data, and improve upon their monitoring systems to proactively identify and take action to minimize multiple/ duplicate Aadhaar numbers generated.
• UIDAI may also review a regular updation of technology.
• UIDAI also needs to strengthen the Automated Biometric Identification System so that generation of multiple/duplicate Aadhaars can be curbed at the initial stage itself.

EXPLORE ALTERNATE WAYS TO CAPTURE THE UNIQUENESS OF BIOMETRIC IDENTITY FOR MINORS:

• UIDAI may explore alternate ways to capture the uniqueness of biometric identity for minor children below five years since uniqueness of identity is the most distinctive feature of Aadhaar established through biometrics of the individual.

REVIEW CHARGING OF FEES FOR VOLUNTARY UPDATES:

• UIDAI may review the charging of fees for the voluntary update of residents’ biometrics since they (UIDAI) were not in a position to identify reasons for biometric failures and residents were not at fault for the capture of poor quality of biometrics.

FRAME A SUITABLE DATA ARCHIVAL POLICY:

• UIDAI may frame a suitable data archival policy to mitigate the risk of vulnerability to data protection and reduce the saturation of valuable data space due to redundant and unwanted data by continuously weeding out unwanted data.

LEVYING PENALTIES:

• UIDAI may levy penalties on Biometric Service Providers for deficiencies in their performance in respect of biometric de-duplication and biometric authentication. Agreements in this regard should be modified if required.

OTHERS:

• Reducing dependence on other agencies for support.
• Improvement in the financial management of grants.
• Introducing a single centralized system for grievance redressal.

 THE WAY FORWARD

• UIDAI should immediately take steps as per the recommendation suggested in the CAG report.
• The Public Account Committee should also examine the functioning of the UIDAI in the highlight of the CAG report. Public Account Committee can provide further recommendations for improvement of its working.
• UIDAI should adhere to the principles of the RTI and put the information suo-moto in the public domain. This will generate an element of accountability and improvement for the agency.
• As the Aadhaar ecosystem is being used for multiple purposes. The agencies should scale up and streamline their infrastructural capacity to meet the increasing requirements.

THE CONCLUSION: Aadhaar is a revolutionary tool that promises to transform our country’s governance, and UIDAI has a significant role in it provided that the emerging issues need to be taken care of and confidence is built among citizens. Although UIDAI is playing its crucial role the recent report of CAG and the issues highlighted need to be addressed for an effective delivery system and gaining the trust of citizens.

Questions for Mains:

1. Discuss the issues highlighted in the Performance Audit Report of CAG ‘Functioning of Unique Identification Authority of India’. Suggest effective measures to resolve these issues.
2. Aadhaar is a revolutionary tool that promises to transform our country’s governance and UIDAI has a significant role in it provided the problems in its functioning are addressed. Explain.

ADD TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE

CIDR– CIDR stands for Classless Inter-Domain Routing. It is an IP address assigning method that improves the efficiency of address distribution. It is also known as super netting replaces the older system based on classes A, B, and C networks. By using a single CIDR IP address many unique IP addresses can be designated.

THE CONTEXT: The European Commission has proposed a set of digital rights and principles in January 2022 that aim to protect people’s rights, support democracy, and ensure a fair and safe online environment. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will discuss the proposal before its adoption. This article explains the major features of the declaration and its significance.

THE SALIENT FEATURES OF THE DECLARATION

PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION:

• Technology should serve and benefit all Europeans and empower them to pursue their aspirations in full security and respect for their fundamental rights. This requires:
• Strengthening the democratic framework for a digital transformation that benefits everyone and improves the lives of all Europeans.
• Fostering responsible and diligent action by all digital actors, public and private, for a safe and secure digital environment.

SOLIDARITY AND INCLUSION:

• Everyone should have access to technology that aims at uniting and not dividing people. The digital transformation should contribute to a fair society and economy in the Union. These needs:

(a) Making sure that technological solutions respect people’s rights, enable their exercise, and promote inclusion.

(b) Developing adequate frameworks so that all market actors assume their responsibilities and make a fair contribution to the costs of public goods and services.

CONNECTIVITY, DIGITAL EDUCATION, AND SKILLS:

• Everyone, everywhere in the EU, should have access to affordable and high-speed digital connectivity. Everyone has the right to education, training, and lifelong learning and should be able to acquire all basic and advanced digital skills. This requires:

(a) Ensuring access to excellent connectivity for everyone, wherever they live and whatever their income.

(b)Promoting and supporting efforts to equip all education and training institutions with digital connectivity, infrastructure, and tools.

WORKING CONDITIONS:

• Everyone has the right to fair, just, healthy, and safe working conditions and appropriate protection in the digital environment as in the physical workplace, regardless of their employment status, modality or duration. This needs:

(a) Ensuring that everyone shall be able to disconnect and benefit from safeguards for work-life balance in a digital environment.

A fair online environment:

• Everyone should be able to effectively choose which online services to use based on objective, transparent and reliable information. This requires:

(a) Ensuring a safe, secure.

(b) A fair online environment where fundamental rights are protected, and the responsibilities of platforms, especially large players and gatekeepers, are well defined.

PARTICIPATION IN THE DIGITAL PUBLIC SPACE:

• Everyone should have access to a trustworthy, diverse, and multilingual online environment. Access to diverse content contributes to a pluralistic public debate and should allow everyone to participate in democracy. This requires:

(a) Supporting the development and best use of digital technologies to stimulate citizen engagement and democratic participation.

(b) Continuing safeguarding fundamental rights online, notably the freedom of expression and information.

PRIVACY AND INDIVIDUAL CONTROL OVER DATA:

• Everyone has the right to the protection of their data online. That right includes the control on how the data are used and with whom they are shared.
• Everyone has the right to the confidentiality of their communications and the information on their electronic devices, and no one shall be subjected to unlawful online surveillance or interception measures.
• Everyone should be able to determine their digital legacy and decide what happens with the publicly available information that concerns them after their death.

SUSTAINABILITY:

• To avoid significant harm to the environment and promote a circular economy, digital products and services should be designed, produced, used, disposed of, and recycled to minimise their negative environmental and social impact. This requires:

(a) Supporting the development and use of sustainable digital technologies that have minimal environmental and social impact.

(b) Developing and deploying digital solutions with a positive impact on the environment and climate.

SIX THEMES OF THE DECLARATION IN A NUTSHELL

THE RATIONALE BEHIND THE EUROPEAN DECLARATION ON DIGITAL RIGHTS AND PRINCIPLES

ACCELERATION IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION:

• Digital transformation offers significant opportunities for a better quality of life, innovation, economic growth, and sustainability. But it also presents new challenges for the fabric, security, and stability of societies and economies.
• With the acceleration of the digital transformation, the time has for the European Union (EU) to spell out how its values and fundamental rights should be applied in the online world.

A CONTINUITY IN DATA PROTECTION APPROACHES:

• The European Parliament has made several calls for ensuring the full compliance of the Union’s approach to the digital transformation with fundamental rights such as data protection or non-discrimination and with principles such as technological and net neutrality and inclusiveness.
• It has also called for strengthened protection of users’ rights in the digital environment. This declaration is in furtherance of such initiatives and approaches.

BUILDING ON PREVIOUS INITIATIVES:

• This declaration builds on previous initiatives such as the “Tallinn Declaration on e-Government”, the “Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-based Digital Government”, the “Lisbon Declaration – Digital Democracy with a Purpose”, “Path to the Digital Decade” etc. which calls for a model of digital transformation that strengthens the human dimension of the digital ecosystem with the Digital Single Market as its core.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR THE MARKET:

• The declaration aims to explain shared political intentions.
• Not only does it recall the most relevant rights in the context of the digital transformation, but it also serves as a reference point for businesses and other relevant actors when developing and deploying new technologies.

FLAG POSTS FOR POLICYMAKERS:

• The democratic oversight of the digital society and economy should be further strengthened, fully respecting the rule of law principles, effective justice, and law enforcement.
• Thus, the declaration will guide policymakers when reflecting on their vision of the digital transformation: putting people at the center of the digital transformation, underlying solidarity, and inclusion, restating the importance of freedom of choice, etc.

PROMOTING BEST PRACTICES:

• The Union shall promote the declaration in its relations with other international organizations and third countries.
• The principles can serve as an inspiration for international partners to guide a digital transformation that puts people and their human rights at the center throughout the world.

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE DECLARATION

• Despite the solemn character of the draft declaration, this text does not purport to exercise any legally binding role. Its ‘political nature is made explicit in the declaration itself and the accompanying communication. as the preamble recalls, it remains declaratory and, even if endorsed, will not set out legal obligations.
• The declaration has not been introduced as an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights 2.0, a document with potential constitutional value.
• The declaration does not have any direct mechanism of enforcement. The EU Commission, however, has proposed to use this document as a guide to assess the status of the digital transition across the EU in the form of an annual report.

EU PARLIAMENT AGREES ON PROPOSAL TO TAKE ON U.S. TECH GIANTS

In the European Parliament in Jan 2022 signed off on a proposal for new rules aimed at U.S. tech giants, paving the way for talks on the plan with member countries and the European Commission. The Digital Services Act, a proposal from the EU antitrust chief would force Amazon, Apple, Alphabet unit Google and Facebook owner Meta to do more to tackle illegal content on their platforms or risk fines up to 6% of global turnover. The proposal still needs to be ironed out with EU countries and lawmakers before it can become law, the first of its kind in the world. The European Parliament adopted the proposal with 530 votes in favour, 78 against, and 80 abstentions.

“With a huge majority, the European Parliament adopted the Digital Services Act. A big win, with support from the left to right,” Dutch lawmaker Paul Tang said on Twitter. Christel Schaldemose, a Danish lawmaker leading the Parliament’s negotiating team, said: “Online platforms have become increasingly important in our daily life, bringing new opportunities and new risks. We have to make sure that what is illegal offline is illegal online.” France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, aims for an agreement in the first half of 2022.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE DIGITAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY: THE INDIAN SCENARIO

‘Digital rights’ is a broad term: it can imply the right to privacy and data protection; it can be related to trolling, online threats, and hate speech; it can address broader issues of equitable Internet access regardless of economic background and disabilities. In India, where citizens’ data are at the mercy of companies and government and where is no privacy law, the Puttaswamy judgment, and the Justice B.N. Srikrishna committee report that led to the Personal Data Protection Bill of 2019 came as a ray of hope. But the Joint Committee report on the Bill has failed to provide a robust draft of legislation ensuring the privacy of citizens.

Earlier, the Central government introduced IT Rules 2021 which is also being criticized as putting disproportionate restrictions on digital freedom. Instead, it is held that it carved out an architecture for a surveillance state. Digital marketing has resulted in the compromise of the personal data integrity of the users and such data is being exploited commercially. There are also many instances of a data breach on the part of both public and private players including the UIDAI.

The lack of accountability of the tech giants is an acute problem in India despite their huge influence on public policy and governance matters. These issues have been echoed in Parliament recently where members urged the government to end the “systematic influence and interference of Facebook and other social media giants” on electoral politics being used to “hack democracy”. Last year, Facebook (Meta)was accused of allowing algorithms to amplify hate speech. Whistle-blowers Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen have testified against the company’s policies. Haugen told British lawmakers that the social media company stokes online hate and extremism, fails to protect children from harmful content and lacks any incentive to fix the problems.

EU, INDIA, 8 OTHER COUNTRIES CALL FOR INT’L COOPERATION ON DATA PROTECTION

In a ‘Joint Declaration on Privacy and the Protection of Personal Data: Strengthening trust in the digital environment’, the European Union, Australia, Comoros, India, Japan, Mauritius, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, and Sri Lanka said rapid technological developments, in particular in information and digital technologies, have brought benefits for their economies and societies, as well as new challenges for privacy and the protection of personal data.

To foster data free flow with trust, which, as also acknowledged by the G20 Rome Leaders’ Declaration, is key to harnessing the opportunities of the digital economy, it is vital to ensure, as guaranteed by these countries’ respective legal frameworks, respect for individuals’ right to privacy and the protection of personal data as a core value and fundamental freedom, said the declaration.

They called for comprehensive legal frameworks and policies covering both the private and public sectors. They underlined core principles such as lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, limited data retention, data security, and accountability. They also called for enforceable rights of individuals, such as access, rectification, deletion, and safeguards concerning automated decision-making such as transparency and the possibility to challenge the outcome.

The joint declaration emphasised safeguards for international transfers to enable cross-border data flows by ensuring that the protection travels with the data. It also called for independent oversight by a dedicated supervisory authority and effective redress.

THE WAY FORWARD

GENERATE AND SPREAD DIGITAL AWARENESS: 

• Similar to many other Internet bills of rights promoted in the past few years by civil society groups and other international organisations, the EU declaration on digital rights and principles plays an important advocacy role in raising public awareness among citizens, institutions, and companies.

DEVELOP DIGITAL REGULATORY CAPABILITY:

• In a time when rapid global digital advancement consistently outpaces regulatory frameworks and institutions of State agencies in the multilateral domain, the declaration represents a unique step toward a human rights-based approach to digital governance and inclusion.
• However, they will remain mere declaratory without regulatory and governance mechanisms to enforce these rights.

A BENCHMARK FOR OTHER COUNTRIES:

• The declaration deals with very substantive aspects of the digital ecosystem including digital equality and oversight of tech companies. It provides a template for other countries/blocs so that they can streamline and update their own digital governances policies.

BALANCING THE RIGHTS OF THE MARKET, GOVERNMENT, AND CONSUMERS:

• The attempt to rein in the “Big-Tech Power” has been ongoing worldwide, including in the USA, Australia, India, etc.
• Although it is necessary to demand and enforce accountability on these companies, this should not lead to a situation of government control over citizens’ data.
• Also, the rights of the market, the free flow of data, and the development of the digital economy should not become a casualty.

LEGAL AND POLICY CERTAINTY IN INDIA:

• India requires a comprehensive digital law and policy system that integrate privacy, regulation, legitimate government control, and scope for digital entrepreneurship. The current Data Protection Bill requires serious overhauling so are the IT Act 2000 and other associated rules and policies.

THE CONCLUSION: The Declaration furthers the global conversation on digital constitutionalism, translating constitutional principles to address the challenges of the digital revolution. It reiterates that the digital world is not a lawless space: Existing fundamental rights are as valid online as they are offline. It is a good step towards promoting a safe, reliable, accountable, and equitable digital space that can benchmark other nations/groupings.

QUESTIONS:

• Comment on the salient features of the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles, 2022. How far do you think that they can address the problems of inequality, poor social inclusion, and lack of accountability in the digital ecosystem?
• “The European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles, 2022 is although right in intent but lacks substance”. Critically Examine