Digital self-determination is a
multidisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
concept derived from the legal concept of
self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
and applied to the digital sphere, to address the unique challenges to individual and collective
agency
Agency may refer to:
Organizations
* Institution, governmental or others
** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients
** Employment agency, a business that ...
and
autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
arising with increasing
digitalization
Digitalization or digitalisation may refer to:
* Digital transformation, the increasing adoption of digital tools to market your product.
* Digitization, the conversion of non-digital or analog information into a digital format.
* Medical use of ...
of many aspects of society and daily life.
Origins
There is no philosophically or legally agreed-upon concept of digital self-determination yet. Broadly speaking, the term describes the attempt to comprehensively project the pattern of human self-determination (as first explored in disciplines like philosophy and psychology, and in the law) into the digital age.
The concept has been included in an official document for the first time by
ARCEP, the French Telecoms Regulator, in a section of its 2021 Report on the State of the Internet,
exploring the work on "Network Self-determination"
conducted by Professor Luca Belli.
Self-determination
Philosophy
The concept of self-determination relates to concepts of
subjectivity
Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...
,
dignity
Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...
, and autonomy in classic central-European philosophy and derived from
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
's conception of freedom. Self-determination presupposes that human beings are entities capable of reason and responsibility for their own rationally chosen and justified actions (autonomy), and ought to be treated accordingly. In formulating his
categorical imperative
The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 ''Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of evalu ...
(kategorischer Imperativ), Kant suggested that humans, as a condition of their autonomy, must never be treated as a means to an end but as an end in itself. The pattern of self-determination similarly aims at enabling autonomous human beings to create, choose and pursue their own identity, action, and life choices without undue interference.
Psychology
In psychology, the concept of self-determination is closely related to self-regulation and
intrinsic motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
, i.e., engaging in a behavior or activity because it is inherently rewarding to do so, as opposed to being driven by external motivations or pressures, like monetary incentives, status, or fear. In this context, self-determination and intrinsic motivation are linked to feeling in control of one's choices and behavior and are considered necessary for psychological well-being.
Self-determination theory
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's innate growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It pertains to the motivation behind people's choices in the absence of extern ...
(SDT), first introduced by psychologists Richard Ryan and Eduard Deci in the 1980s, and further developed through the 1990s and 2000s, has been largely influential in shaping the concept of self-determination in the field of psychology. Ryan and Deci's SDT proposed that individuals' motivated behavior is characterized by three basic and universal needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy refers here to the need to feel free to decide one's course of action. Competence refers to the need to have the capacity and skills to undertake and complete motivated behavior in an effective manner. Finally, relatedness refers to the need to experience warm and caring social relationships and feel connected to others. According to SDT, all three needs must be fulfilled for optimal functioning and psychological well-being. However, other psychologists like Barry Schwartz have argued that if self-determination is taken to extremes, freedom of choice can turn into the "tyranny of choice". In this view, having too much autonomy and too many choices over our course of action can be perceived as overwhelming, make our decisions more difficult, and ultimately lead to psychological distress rather than wellbeing.
Law
= Human rights
=
In international law, the right of a
people
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
to self-determination is commonly recognized as a
ius cogens
A peremptory norm (also called or ' ; Latin for "compelling law") is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted.
There is no universal ...
rule. Here, self-determination denotes that a people, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty, international political status, economic, social, and cultural development with no interference. In the framework of the United Nations, fundamental rights like self-determination are mainly defined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedo ...
, and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on 16 December 1966 through GA. Resolution 2200A (XXI), and came in force from 3 January 197 ...
.
= Informational self-determination in German law
=
The concept of
informational self-determination The term informational self-determination was first used in the context of a German constitutional ruling relating to personal information collected during the 1983 census. The German term is informationelle Selbstbestimmung. It is formally defined ...
(informational Selbstbestimmung), considered as a modern fundamental right which protects against unjustified data processing, has featured prominently in the
German Federal Constitutional Court's (Bundesverfassungsgericht) jurisprudence and might be the most direct precursor and inspiration to the concept of digital self-determination.
In 1983, the Bundesverfassungsgericht ruled that "in the context of modern data processing, the general right of personality under Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law encompasses the protection of the individual against unlimited collection, storage, use and sharing of personal data. The fundamental right guarantees the authority conferred on the individual to, in principle, decide themselves on the disclosure and use of their personal data." (Volkszählungsurteil, headnote 1).
Philosophically, the right to informational self-determination is deeply rooted in the Bundesverfassungsgericht's understanding of inviolable Human Dignity (Article 1 of the Grundgesetz) as a prohibition of human objectification (in German: Objektformel; see for example n°33 of BVerfGE 27, 1 - Mikrozensus). This understanding refers back to the late 18th-century German philosophy of Enlightenment. The Volkszählungsurteil was inspired by the concern that modern data processing technology could lead to a "registration and cataloging of one's personality in a manner that is incompatible with human dignity" (Volkszählungsurteil, headnote 4). In this view, human beings, due to their inviolable dignity, may never be treated like depersonalized and objectified resources that can be harvested for data. Instead humans, due to their capacity for autonomy, are self-determined agents possessing a significant degree of control over their informational images.
Self-determination in the digital sphere
The increasing digitization of most aspects of society poses new challenges for the concept and realization of self-determination.
[Remolina, Nydia and Findlay, Mark James, The Paths to Digital Self-Determination - A Foundational Theoretical Framework (April 22, 2021). SMU Centre for AI & Data Governance Research Paper No. 03/2021, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3831726] While the digital sphere has ushered in innovation and opened up new opportunities for self-expression and communication for individuals across the globe, its reach and benefits have not been evenly distributed, oftentimes deepening existing inequalities and power structures, commonly referred to as a
digital divide
The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...
. Moreover, the digital transformation has enabled, oftentimes unbeknownst to individuals, the mass collection, analysis, and harvesting of personal data by private companies and governments to infer individuals' information and preferences (e.g., by tracking browsing and shopping history), influence opinions and behavior (e.g., through filter bubbles and targeted advertisements), and/or to make decisions about them (e.g., approving or not a loan or employment application), thus posing new threats to individuals' privacy and autonomy.
[Center for Humane Technology, “Ledger of Harms”, https://ledger.humanetech.com/, accessed May 22, 2021.]
Although the definition of digital self-determination is still evolving, the term has been used to address humans' capacity (or lack thereof) to exercise self-determination in their existence in and usage of digital media, spaces, networks, and technologies, with the protection of the potential for human flourishing in the digital world as one of the chief concerns.
Starting in the 2010s, a few multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral initiatives around the world have been working on developing a theoretical framework for the concept of digital self-determination.
In 2015, the Cologne Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health, housed at the University of Cologne (CERES), conducted a study to help define digital self-determination and develop metrics to measure its fulfillment. Their study report defines digital self-determination as "the concrete development of a human personality or the possibility of realizing one's own plans of action and decisions to act, insofar as this relates to the conscious use of digital media or is (co-)dependent on the existence or functioning of digital media".
In 2017, Professor Luca Belli presented at the United Nations
Internet Governance Forum
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multistakeholder governance group for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance. It brings together all stakeholders in the Internet governance debate, whether they represent governments, the privat ...
the concept of Network Self-determination as the "right to freely associate in order to define, in a democratic fashion, the design, development and management of network infrastructure as a common good, so that all individuals can freely seek, impart and receive information and innovation." Arguing that the right to network self-determination finds its basis in the fundamental right to self-determination of peoples as well as in the right to informational self-determination, Belli posits that network self-determination plays a pivotal role allowing individuals to associate and join efforts to bridge digital divides in a bottom-up fashion, freely developing common infrastructure. The concept gained traction at the Latin American level, starting to form a core element of research and policy proposals dedicated to community networks.
In 2018, the Swiss government launched a Digital Self-Determination network in response to the action plan for the Federal Council's 'Digital Switzerland' strategy, including representatives from the Swiss Federal Administration, academia, civil society, and the private sector. The work of this network conceptualizes digital self-determination as "a way of enhancing trust into digital transformation while allowing all actors of society to benefit from the potential of the data economy". This work proposes that the core principles of digital self-determination are transparency and trust, control and self-determined data sharing, user-oriented data spaces, and decentralized data spaces that operate in proximity to citizens' needs. The work of the network aims "to create an international network that represents the basic principles of digital self-determination and on this basis will elaborate best practices, standards, and agreements to develop international data spaces".
In 2021, the French Telecoms Regulator (
ARCEP) referred to the concept of Digital Self-determination in its official annual report dedicated to "The State of the Internet",
drawing on the
IGF output document report on
The Value of Internet Openness in Times of Crisis.
In 2021, the Centre of AI & Data Governance at Singapore Management University launched a major research project focusing on the concept of digital self-determination, in collaboration with the Swiss government and other research partners. Their theoretical framework
focuses on data governance and privacy, and proposes that the core components of digital self-determination are the empowerment of data subjects to oversee their sense of self in the digital sphere, their ability to govern their data, consent as a cornerstone of privacy and data protection, protection against data malfeasance, and accuracy and authenticity of the data collected. This proposed framework also emphasizes that digital self-determination refers to both individuals and collectives and that the concept should be understood in the context of "rights dependent on duties" and in parallel to concepts of a social or relational self, social responsibility, and digital solidarity (see below: 3.1. Addressing the multilevel 'self' in digital self-determination)
In 2021, the Digital Asia Hub in collaboration with the
Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and the Global Network of Internet & Society Centers, conducted a research sprint to explore the concept of digital self-determination from different perspectives and across cultural contexts. This initiative approached digital self-determination "as an enabler of - or at least contributor - to the exercise of autonomy and agency in the face of shrinking choices", to address questions of control, power, and equity "in a world that is increasingly constructed, mediated, and at times even dominated by digital technologies and digital media, including the underlying infrastructures."
In addition to the work of governments and research centers, civil society members have also advocated for digital self-determination. For example,
Ferdinand von Schirach
Ferdinand von Schirach (born 12 May 1964) is a German lawyer and writer. He published his first short stories at the age of forty-five. Shortly thereafter he became one of Germany's most successful authors. His books, which have been translated i ...
, a legal attorney and widely-read German writer of fictional legal short stories and novels, has launched an initiative entitled "JEDER MENSCH", which translates to "Every human". In "JEDER MENSCH", von Schirach calls for the addition of six new fundamental rights to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Article 2 of this proposal is entitled "right to digital self-determination", and proposed that "Everyone has the right to digital self-determination. Excessive profiling or the manipulation of people is forbidden."
In October 2021, an International Network on Digital Self-Determination was created with the intention of "bringing together diverse perspectives from different fields around the world to study and design ways to engage in trustworthy data spaces and ensure human centric approaches." The network is composed of experts from the Directorate of International Law of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs; the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Data Governance at Singapore Management University; the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University; the Global Tech Policy Practice at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology and The GovLab at New York University.
Practical elements
Different sectors of society, ranging from legislators and policy-makers, to public organizations and scholars, to activists and members of the civil society, have called for digital infrastructure, tools and systems that protect and promote individuals' self-determination, including equal and free access, human-centered design, better privacy protections and control over data. These elements are closely connected and complement one another. For example, equal access to digital infrastructure can enable the representation of diverse viewpoints and participatory governance in the digital sphere, and decentralized systems might be necessary to ensure individuals' control over their data.
Access to digital infrastructure and tools
Bridging the various forms of existing
digital divide
The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...
s and providing equitable and fair access to digital technologies and the internet has been proposed as crucial to ensure that all individuals are able to benefit from the digital age, including access to information, services, and advancement opportunities.
In this sense, the concept of Digital Self-determination overlaps with the concept of "Network Self-determination" as it emphases that groups of unconnected and scarcely connected individuals can regain control over digital infrastructures, by building them and shaping the governance framework that will organise them as a common good. As such, Belli stresses that network self-determination leads to several positive externalities for the affected communities, preserving the Internet as an open, distributed, interoperable and generative network of networks.
Digital literacy
Digital literacy
Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information through typing and other media on various digital platforms. It is evaluated by an individual's grammar, composition, typing skills and ability to pro ...
and
media literacy
Media literacy is an expanded conceptualization of literacy that includes the ability to access and analyze media messages as well as create, reflect and take action, using the power of information and communication to make a difference in the w ...
have been proposed as necessary for individuals to acquire the knowledge and skills to use digital tools as well as to critically assess the content they encounter online, create their own content, and understand the features and implications of the digital technology used on them as well as the technology they consciously and willingly engage with. In addition to basic digital navigation skills and critical consumption of information, definitions of digital literacy have been extended to include an awareness of existing alternatives to the digital platforms and services used, understanding how personal data is handled, awareness of rights and existing legal protections, and of measures to independently protect one's security and privacy online (e.g., the adoption of obfuscation techniques as a way of evading and protesting digital surveillance).
Representation of diverse realities and viewpoints
Internet activist
Eli Pariser
Eli Pariser (born December 17, 1980) is an author, activist, and entrepreneur. He has stated that his focus is "how to make technology and media serve democracy". He became executive director of MoveOn.org in 2004, where he helped pioneer the pra ...
coined the term
filter bubble
A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolationTechnopediaDefinition – What does Filter Bubble mean?, Retrieved October 10, 2017, "....A filter bubble is the intellectual isolation, that can occur when websites make us ...
to refer to the reduced availability of divergent opinions and realities that we encounter online as a consequence of personalization algorithms like
personalized search
Personalized search refers to web search experiences that are tailored specifically to an individual's interests by incorporating information about the individual beyond the specific query provided. There are two general approaches to personaliz ...
and
recommendation system
A recommender system, or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing 'system' with a synonym such as platform or engine), is a subclass of information filtering system that provide suggestions for items that are most pertinent to a particular u ...
s. Filter bubbles have been suggested to facilitate a warped understanding of others' points of view and the world. Ensuring a wide representation of diverse realities on digital platforms could be a way of increasing exposure to conflicting viewpoints and avoiding intellectual isolation into informational bubbles.
Human-centered design of user interfaces and experiences
Scholars have coined the term
attention economy
Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity and applies economic theory to solve various information management problems. According to Matthew Crawford, "Attention is a ...
to refer to the treatment of human attention as a scarce commodity in the context of ever-increasing amounts of information and products. In this view, the increasing competition for users' limited attention, especially when relying on
advertising revenue
Advertising revenue is the monetary income that individuals and businesses earn from displaying paid advertisements on their websites, social media channels, or other platforms surrounding their internet-based content. In September 2018, the U.S ...
models, creates a pressing goal for digital platforms to get as many people as possible to spend as much time and attention as possible using their product or service. In their quest for users' scarce attention, these platforms would be incentivized to exploit users' cognitive and emotional weaknesses, for example via constant notifications,
dark pattern
Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown.
Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lu ...
s, forced multitasking, social comparison, and incendiary content.
Advocates of
human-centered design
Human-centered design (HCD, also human-centred design, as used in ISO standards) is an approach to problem-solving commonly used in process, product, service and system design, management, and engineering frameworks that develops solutions to p ...
in technology (or
humane technology) propose that technology should refrain from such 'brain-hacking' practices, and instead should support users' agency over their time and attention as well as their overall wellbeing.
Data governance
Scholar
Shoshana Zuboff popularized the term
surveillance capitalism
Surveillance capitalism is a concept in political economics which denotes the widespread collection and commodification of personal data by corporations. This phenomenon is distinct from government surveillance, though the two can reinforce each o ...
to refer to the private sector's commodification of users' personal data for profit (e.g. via
targeted advertising
Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting. These traits can either be demographic with a focus ...
), leading to increased vulnerability to surveillance and exploitation. Surveillance capitalism relies on centralized data management models wherein private companies retain ownership and control over the users' data. To guard against the challenges to individuals' privacy and self-determination, various alternative data governance models have been recently proposed around the world, including trusts, commons, cooperative, collaboratives, fiduciaries, and "pods". These models have some overlap and share a common mission to give more control to individuals over their data and thus address the current power imbalances between data holders and data subjects.
Current issues
Addressing the multilevel 'self' in digital self-determination
Digital self-determination for individuals
An individual's exercising of
self-agency
Self-agency, also known as the phenomenal will, is the sense that actions are self-generated. Scientist Benjamin Libet was the first to study it, concluding that brain activity predicts the action before one even has conscious awareness of his or h ...
can be intimately connected to the digital environments one is embedded in, which can shape one's
choice architecture
Choice architecture is the design of different ways in which choices can be presented to decision makers, and the impact of that presentation on decision-making. For example, each of the following:
* the number of choices presented
* the manner i ...
, access to information and opportunities as well as exposure to harm and exploitation, thereby affecting the person's capacity to freely and autonomously conduct his or her life. A variety of digital technologies and their underlying infrastructure, regardless of their relatively visible or indirect
human interfaces, could contribute to conditions that empower or disempower an individual's self-determination in the spheres of socio-economic participation, representation of
cultural identity
Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct cultur ...
and
political expression.
![Face Recognition 3252983](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Face_Recognition_3252983.png)
The extent of technologically-mediated spheres where such influence could take place over an individual's self-determined choices has been the focus of growing contemporary debates across diverse geographies. One of the debates concerns whether an individual's
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
, as a form of control over one's information, may or may not be sufficiently protected from exploitative
data harvesting In metadata, metadata discovery (also metadata harvesting) is the process of using automated tools to discover the semantics of a data element in data sets. This process usually ends with a set of mappings between the data source elements and a cen ...
and
micro-targeting that can exert undue behavioural influence over the individual as part of a targeted group. Developments in this area vary greatly across countries and regions where there are different
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
frameworks and big data policies, such as the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
's
General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in partic ...
and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
's
Social Credit System
The Social Credit System () is a national credit rating and blacklist being developed by the government of the People's Republic of China. The social credit initiative calls for the establishment of a record system so that businesses, indivi ...
, which approach
personal data distinctly.
Other debates range from whether individual
agency
Agency may refer to:
Organizations
* Institution, governmental or others
** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients
** Employment agency, a business that ...
in decision-making can be undermined by
predictive algorithms; whether an individual labor, particularly in the
Global South, may encounter new employment opportunities as well as unique vulnerabilities in the
digital economy
The digital economy is a portmanteau of digital computing and economy, and is an umbrella term that describes how traditional Brick and mortar, brick-and-mortar economic activities (production, distribution, trade) are being transformed by Interne ...
; whether an individual's self-expression may be unduly and discriminately policed by
surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
technologies deployed in
smart cities
A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect specific data. Information gained from that data is used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in retur ...
, particularly those integrating
facial recognition and
emotion recognition
Emotion recognition is the process of identifying human emotion. People vary widely in their accuracy at recognizing the emotions of others. Use of technology to help people with emotion recognition is a relatively nascent research area. Genera ...
capabilities which run on
biometric data, as a form of digital
panopticon
The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be o ...
; and whether an individual's access to diverse information may be affected by the
digital divide
The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...
and dominance of centralized online platforms, potentially limiting one's capacity to imagine his or her identity and make informed decisions.
Digital self-determination for children
Digital media
Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...
and technology afford children the opportunity to engage in various activities that support their development, learning, and pleasure time. Such activities include play, interactions with others, sharing and creating content, and experimenting with varied forms of identities afforded by mediums they engage with . At the same time, despite digital media affordances, children are users who are under 18 years old, which can have unintended consequences on how children consume content, be vulnerable, and ways interactions with technology impact the child's emotional, behavioral, and
cognitive development
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of the developed adult bra ...
. Therefore, calls within
digital literacy
Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information through typing and other media on various digital platforms. It is evaluated by an individual's grammar, composition, typing skills and ability to pro ...
and children technology interaction research assert that ethical design of technology is essential for designing equitable environments for children. Work in digital media and learning acknowledges the affordances of technology for creating expansive ways for learning and development for children, at the same time, pays attention to that children should learn critical digital literacies that enables them to communicate, evaluate, and construct knowledge within digital media. Additionally, ethical consideration should be taken into account to support children's self-determination. For instance within this body of work, there is an attention to involving children in the decision making process of technology design as an ethical methodological approach in engaging the design of technology for children. In other words, involving children within the design process of technologies and thinking about ethical dimensions of children interactions enables a shift of the notion of vulnerability is shifted towards supporting children to enact their self-determination and positioning them as active creators of their own digital futures.
Beyond ethical considerations, children's involvement in digital technologies and digital market practices has also an important relevance with their
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
and
data protection
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data pr ...
rights. Use of
predictive analytics
Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events.
In business ...
and tracking software systems can impact children's digital and real life choices by exploiting massive profiling practices. In fact, due to the ubiquitous use of these algorithmic systems at both state and private sector level, children's privacy can easily be violated and they can be
personally identifiable in the digital sphere.
Article 12 of
the UN CRC implies a responsibility to states that children should have the right to form and express their own views "freely, without any pressure".
In the literal analysis, pressure refers to any kind of manipulation, oppression or exploitation. States parties should recognize that all children regardless of age are capable of forming and expressing their own autonomous opinions.
Also, it is stated by the Committee that children should have the right to be heard even if they don't have a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter affecting them.
Moreover, Article 3 of the UNCRC states that the best interest of the child shall be embedded in private and governmental decision making processes and shall be a primary consideration in relation to the services and procedures which involve children. Anchoring these responsibilities to private and public digital practices and as it is highlighted in the General Comment No. 25 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, children are at great risk in the digital domain regarding their vulnerable and evolving
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
. It turns out that with the proliferation of
mass surveillance
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...
and predictive analytics, new disputes are on the way for states to protect children's very innate rights. To this end, recent
class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
s and regulation efforts Tech firms can be promising examples in the context of pushing the private sector to adopt more privacy-preserving practices on children which can provide a golden shield for their autonomy.
In this incautiously regulated atmosphere, it has become easier to make profit with the help of
behavioral advertising
Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting. These traits can either be demographic with a focus ...
against children. Not having appropriate consent- inform/
parental consent
Parental consent laws (also known as parental involvement laws) in some countries require that one or more parents consent to or be notified before their minor child can legally engage in certain activities.
Parental consent may refer to:
*A pa ...
practices, it is so easy to manipulate and exploit very intrinsic vulnerabilities of children and
nudge
Nudge or Nudging may refer to:
Arts
* Nudge (band), an American electronic rock band
* Nudge, a List of characters in Maximum Ride#Nudge, character from the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson
* "Nudge Nudge", a sketch from the third ''Monty Py ...
them to choose specific products and applications. Regarding this, article 8 of
the GDPR provides a set of age limits on the processing of personal data of children related to the information society services(ISS). Pursuant to Article 8, in conditions where children are at least 16 years old, the child can give consent to the lawful processing of personal data restricted with the purpose of processing (Art(6)(1)(a). For children under 16 years old, it is lawful only and to the extent of the consent which is given by the holder of the parental responsibility to the child. This age limit of 16 can be lower to the age of 13 by the Member States. In addition to this, it is emphasized that data controllers should take necessary measurements in relation to the protection of children's data. Supporting these, Recital 38 states that children merit specific protection on the use, collection and processing of their data taking into consideration that children are less aware of the impacts, consequences and safeguards with respect to processing of their personal data. The GDPR also refers to the children in Articles 40 and 57; Recitals 58 and 75.
Beyond the GDPR, one of the structured regulations is the UK's
Information Commissioner's Office
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is the independe ...
(ICO) Children Code (formally Age Appropriate Design Code) which is passed in September 2020. The Children Code sets forth the age limit as 18 with regard to ability to give free while implying the responsibility to the providers of online services such as apps, games, connected devices and toys and new services. What differs The Children Code from the EU regulations is that it applies to all information society services which are likely to be accessed by children. This means, even if the service is not directly aimed at children, the parties that offer those services must comply with The Children Code. The ICO's Children Code is also infused with the notion of the best interest of the child that is laid out in the UNCRC.
Having a broad scope, the ICO lists a set of guiding points for organizations to support the notion of the best interest of the child such as recognizing that children has an evolving capacity to form their own views and giving due weight to those views, protecting their needs of the developing their own ideas and identity, their right to assembly and play.
The Code also extends the protection of the personal data of children with a set of key standards such as data minimisation, data protection impact assessments, age appropriate design, privacy by default and transparency.
Geopolitical and cultural power dynamics in the digital world
Digital Colonialism
The politics of the empire are already permeating the shared histories. Unequal social relations between colonizing and colonized peoples materialized through exploitation, segregation, epistemic violence, and so on. Throughout the world, these discourses of colonialism dominated peoples' perceptions and cultures. Post-colonial critics contended how colonized peoples could attain cultural, economical, and social agency against the oppressive structures and representation imposed on their lives and societies.
However, through temporality, the preface "post" implies the historical period of colonization has ended, and the colonized subjects are now free of its discourses. Scholars have focalized on the continuity of colonialism even if it has historically ended. The neo-colonial structures and discourses are already part of the different "postcolonial" cultures. The postcolonial era in which colonized countries have gained independence and autonomy has been a means for the populace to regain their own self-determination and freedom. Yet, the neo-colonial structures that are still rampant in the postcolonial societies. Although the nation-state might forward the idea of autonomy and self-determination, new forms of colonialism are always emerging. This dialectic between colonialism and self-determination encompasses a range of fields, changing in form, focus, and scope over time. It is reflected in the complex political and policy relationships between "postcolonial" peoples and the state, especially since most states are replicating the legal and political systems of their former colonizer.
History articulates that state policy in fields as diverse as health, education, housing, public works, employment, and justice had, and continue to have, negative effects on indigenous peoples after independence. This negative effect is shared throughout the former colonized peoples. Alongside these political tensions, economic interests have manipulated legal and governance frameworks to extract value and resources from former colonized territories, often without adequate compensation or consultation to impacted individuals and communities. Accordingly, Digital Colonialism emerges as a dominant discourse in the digital sphere.
Digital colonialism is a structural form of domination exercised through the centralized ownership and control of the three core pillars of the digital ecosystem: software, hardware, and network connectivity. The control over the latter three gives giant corporations an immense political, economic, and social power over not only individuals, but even nation-states. Assimilation into the tech products, models, and ideologies of foreign powers constitutes a colonization of the internet age.
Today, a new form of corporate colonization is taking place. Instead of the conquest of land, Big Tech corporations are colonizing digital technology. The following functions are dominated by a handful of multinational companies: search engines (Google); web browsers (Google Chrome); smartphone and tablet operating systems (Google Android, Apple iOS); desktop and laptop operating systems (Microsoft Windows); office software (Microsoft Office, Google Docs); cloud infrastructure and services (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM); social networking platforms (Facebook, Twitter); transportation (Uber, Lyft); business networking (Microsoft LinkedIn); streaming video (Google YouTube, Netflix, Hulu); and online advertising (Google, Facebook) – among others. These include the five wealthiest corporations in the world, with a combined market cap exceeding $3 trillion. If any nation-state integrates these Big Tech products into their society, these multinational corporations will obtain enormous power over their economy and create technological dependencies that will lead to perpetual resource extraction. This resembles the Colonial period in which the colonies were made to be dependent on the colonizer's economy for further exploitation.
Under digital colonialism, digital infrastructure in the Global South are engineered for the Big tech companies' needs, enabling economic and cultural domination while imposing privatized forms of governance. To accomplish this task, major corporations design digital technology to ensure their own dominance over critical functions in the tech ecosystem. This allows them to accumulate profits from revenues derived from rent; to exercise control over the flow of information, social activities, and a plethora of other political, social, economic, and military functions which use their technologies.
Digital colonialism depends on code. In Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig famously argued that computer code shapes the rules, norms, and behaviors of computer-mediated experiences. As a result, "code is law" in the sense that it has the power to usurp legal, institutional, and social norms impacting the political, economic, and cultural domains of society. This critical insight has been applied in fields like copyright, free speech regulation, Internet governance, blockchain, privacy, and even torts. This is similar to architecture in physical space during colonialism. Building and infrastructures were built to reinforce the dominance and reach of colonialism.
"Postcolonial" peoples, then, face multiple digital limitations in their access and use of the networked digital infrastructures. The latter threatens to reflect and restructure existing relations of social inequality grounded in colonialism and continuing processes of neo-colonialism. Indigenous peoples are acutely aware of this potential, and so are working with various partners to decolonize the digital sphere. They are undertaking a variety of projects that represent their diverse and localized experiences, alongside a common desire for self-determination. Rural and remote indigenous communities face persistent access problems to the digital associated with the historic and ongoing effects of colonialism. Remote indigenous communities are becoming 'offline by design' because their going online has been challenged. Indigenous peoples are asserting their digital self-determination by using these platforms to build online communities, express virtual identities, and represent their culture virtually. Hence, they are no longer static as offline, but becoming 'networked individualism'. Their engagement with the digital sphere resists the imposed representations of their identities and deterritorializes conceptions of virtual communities. Accordingly, the former colonized peoples are always engaged in the process of decolonizing the latent neo-/colonial discourses which are dominating the internet.
Digital Apartheid
Digital apartheid has also been a key concept in debates around digital
self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
. For authors such as Christian Fuchs, digital apartheid means that "certain groups and regions of the world are systematically excluded from
cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
and the benefits that it can create."
Brown and Czerniewicz (2010), drawing on a research project interrogating the access of
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
students in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
to
Information and Communications Technology
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...
(ICT), highlight that while age or generational aspects have been a characteristic of
digital divide
The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...
s, now the latter are rather a question of access and opportunity, claiming that in the present day "digital apartheid is alive and well."
Borrowing from Graham (2011), and extending to the representation of conditions surrounding higher education in post-
apartheid South Africa
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, Ashton et al. (2018)
highlight the concept of digital apartheid as a multidimensional process with three dimensions - a material dimension (including access to
infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
, device,
cellular
Cellular may refer to:
*Cellular automaton, a model in discrete mathematics
* Cell biology, the evaluation of cells work and more
* ''Cellular'' (film), a 2004 movie
*Cellular frequencies, assigned to networks operating in cellular RF bands
*Cell ...
coverage,
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
), a skills dimension (including education legacy regarding
computer training,
social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
with regard to the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
/
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
computer skills), and a virtual dimension (including
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
,
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
and contextual relevance). The authors argue that "The virtual dimension emerges from the intentional act of '
digital redlining' which takes on a number of forms. It may be under the guise of protecting an organisation from
spam
Spam may refer to:
* Spam (food), a canned pork meat product
* Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages
** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages
** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...
and illicit, harmful
cyber-attacks
A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted ...
, but has the secondary outcome of blocking or filtering out communities who only have access through cheaper portals."
It also includes the influence of the Westernised, English internet that further influences
content
Content or contents may refer to:
Media
* Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers
** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...
visibility. The skills dimension emerges from an understanding where
ICT lessons were not a part of the
curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
until recently and therefore the skill development remained underexposed and restricted. The authors refer to the material dimension as the most cited concern regarding introducing
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
as part of the curriculum, arguing that "the lack of power infrastructure in lower
socio-economic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
areas and exorbitant data costs, impact some students' ability to access their learning resources."
Since 2019, this concept signifying advantages to some and dispossession of some others has also been used to characterize
internet shutdowns and communications blockades in Jammu and Kashmir. The region, contested and claimed by both
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
in its entirety and a site of an active
armed conflict
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
, witnessed the Indian State imposing a total communication blackout and
internet shutdown in Jammu and Kashmir on the intervening night of 4 and 5 August 2019 as part of its unilateral measures to remove the semi-autonomous nature of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Low speed
2G internet was restored in January 2020 while high speed
4G internet was restored in February 2021. A 2019 report notes that between 2012 and 2019, there have been 180 internet shutdowns in the region. India also topped the list of 29 countries that had disrupted access to the internet for the people in the year 2020.
The report by
Access Now
Access Now is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 with a mission to defend and extend the digital civil rights of people around the world. Access Now supports programs including an annual conference on Human Rights (RightsCon), an index ...
highlighted, "India had instituted what had become a perpetual, punitive shutdown in Jammu and Kashmir beginning in August 2019. Residents in these states had previously experienced frequent periodic shutdowns, and in 2020 they were deprived of reliable, secure, open, and accessible internet on an ongoing basis."
In placing these frequent shutdowns in the context of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, the report Kashmir's Internet Siege (2020) by the
Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society argues that with the frequent internet shutdowns, the Indian government has been enacting in these regions a "digital apartheid," "a form of systemic and pervasive discriminatory treatment and
collective punishment
Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbors of the perpetrator. Because ind ...
."
According to the report, "frequent and prolonged internet shutdowns enact a profound digital apartheid by systematically and structurally depriving the people of Kashmir of the means to participate in a highly networked and
digitised world."
This systematic
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
and deprivation not only resulted in excluding the people, collectively, from participating in
cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
, but as was evident, it crippled IT companies and
startups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...
in Kashmir. It was noted to have affected at least a thousand employees working in this sector just in the third month of the world's longest internet shutdown that began on the intervening night of 4 and 5 August 2019 across Jammu and Kashmir.
In a statement,
UN Special Rapporteurs referred to the
communication blackout as a
collective punishment
Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbors of the perpetrator. Because ind ...
without any pretext of precipitating offence. "The shutdown of the internet and
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
networks, without justification from the Government, are inconsistent with the fundamental norms of necessity and proportionality," the experts said. A news report quoting the story of an
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
who had been doing well with a
startup noted that the "Internet is the oxygen for start-ups. The Centre pulled that plug on August 5. The virtual world was our space for growth. Now that's gone. All employees and producers have been rendered jobless
.I have to work by hook or by crook to meet the damage inflicted by loss of customers, undelivered orders and accumulated goods after the non-availability of Internet." In June 2020, it was reported for the first time how non-local companies were able to bag a majority of contracts online for
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...
of mineral blocks, as locals were left at a disadvantage due to the ban on high speed internet.
The effect of this digital apartheid was also witnessed during the lockdown induced by the
Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
leaving the
healthcare
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
infrastructure crippled as doctors complained about not being able to access
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
or attend trainings on coronavirus owing to the restricted internet. The president of the Doctors Association noted that the awareness drives that were carried out elsewhere about the
virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...
were impossible to run in Kashmir. "We want to educate people through videos, which is not possible at 2G speed. We are handicapped in the absence of high speed internet." Health experts and the locals warned that the internet blackout was hampering the fight against
coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...
in the region. The internet shutdown also affected education across all levels in the region. News reports noted how Kashmiri education was left behind even as life elsewhere was moving online in dealing with the stay-at-home guidelines during the pandemic. A news report after a year of the communication blackout and subsequent restriction on high-speed internet highlighted that it had "ravaged
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
,
entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
" in the region.
Regulating for digital self-determination
The legal landscape
Promoting concepts and rights which are closely related to digital self-determination is a common goal behind regulatory initiatives in various legal systems. Stemming from the conceptual framework of
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
, and a well-established notion of
informational self-determination The term informational self-determination was first used in the context of a German constitutional ruling relating to personal information collected during the 1983 census. The German term is informationelle Selbstbestimmung. It is formally defined ...
, digital self-determination gradually comes to play an increasingly important role as a concept that encompasses values and virtues which remain highly relevant in the context of the global
network society Network society is the expression coined in 1991 related to the social, political, economic and cultural changes caused by the spread of networked, digital information and communications technologies. The intellectual origins of the idea can be trac ...
, such as
autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
,
dignity
Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...
, and
freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
.
The importance of embedding the fundamental values into the legislative frameworks regulating the digital sphere has been stressed numerous times by scholars, public authorities, and representatives of various organizations.
The EU's legal policy, while not explicitly referencing a right to digital self-determination, pursues closely related objectives. One of the overarching premises of the European Digital Strategy is to encourage the development of trustworthy technology that "works for the people". It aims at advancing, among other things, "human-centered digital public services and administration", as well as "ethical principles for human-centered algorithms".
The EU has outlined these policy goals in several regulatory agendas including i.a
the EU Commission Digital Strategythe European Data Strategy an
the EU's White Paper on Artificial Intelligence Subsequently, the EU has pursued the abovementioned objectives through the adoption or proposal of several legal instruments including:
*
The General Data Protection Regulation, aimed at laying down "rules relating to the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and rules relating to the free movement of personal data", protecting "fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons and in particular their right to the protection of personal data" and guaranteeing "the free movement of personal data within the Union". The main provisions relating to the concept of digital self-determination include principles of data processing (e.g. fairness, transparency, and accountability), grounds for legitimate data processing (notably consent and legitimate interests), rights of data subjects (e.g. the right to be informed,
right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is the right to have private information about a person be removed from Internet searches and other directories under some circumstances. The concept has been discussed and put into practice in several jurisdiction ...
, right to object), right to data portability, obligations associated with
privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default, rights and obligations concerning algorithmic data processing (notably profiling and automated decision-making), and obligations concerning data transfers outside
the European Economic Area.
*
The ePrivacy Regulation, a legislative proposal aimed at regulating the issues concerning
electronic communications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
within the EU, including
confidentiality
Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information.
Legal confidentiality
By law, lawyers are often required ...
of communications, privacy controls through electronic consent and browsers, and
cookies
A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts ...
.
*
The Digital Services Act, a legislative proposal aimed at harmonizing rules regarding digital intermediary services, most notably illegal content, transparent advertising, disinformation on social media platforms, and content recommending systems, while preserving
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
. The DSA is one of two proposals o
the Digital Services Act package
*
The Digital Markets Act, a legislative proposal aimed at regulating the performance of the large online platforms acting as "gatekeepers" in
the European Single Market, thus guaranteeing fair competition and "leveling the playing field". The DMA is one of two proposals o
the Digital Services Act package
The Regulation on Artificial Intelligence a legislative proposal aimed at providing developers, deployers, and users with clear requirements and obligations regarding specific uses of
AI. The draft regulation introduces i.a. a catalog of prohibited AI practices that distort the behavior of the individual in a manner that can lead to physical or mental harm.
*
The Data Governance Act and the Open Data Directive, legislative proposals aimed at creating trustworthy data-sharing systems which will empower the EU citizens to decide about sharing their data across sectors and the Member States, while increasing the annual economic value of data sharing in the EU and creating social and economic benefits.
*
The Copyright Directive, aiming to protect intellectual property and, consequently, intellectual work. However, it contains a difficult and controversial balance with another aspect of self-determination, which is freedom of speech (especially Article 17).
* The Audiovisual Media Services Directive, regulating the freedom of information in the domain of Audiovisual Media Services as well as the liability of the platforms.
The U.S. has yet to introduce a comprehensive
information privacy law
Information privacy, data privacy or data protection laws provide a legal framework on how to obtain, use and store data of natural persons. The various laws around the world describe the rights of natural persons to control who is using its dat ...
; legislation pertaining to data and digital rights currently exists at both the state and federal level and is often sector-specific. In the United States,
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is tasked with overseeing the protection of consumers' digital privacy and security, outlining
fair information practice principles for the governance of online spaces.
Federal legislation includes the
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, located at ().
The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. juri ...
br>
(COPPA)which regulates the collection of personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen online. The
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy– Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1 ...
(HIPAA) includes federal standards for protecting the privacy and security of personal health data stored electronically. The
Family Educational and Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) governs access to and the disclosure of studen
educational records.While state legislation varies in the strength of their protections, the
California Consumer Privacy Act
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a state statute intended to enhance privacy rights and consumer protection for residents of California, United States. The bill was passed by the California State Legislature and signed into law by Jer ...
(CCPA) of 2018 provides California consumers with the right to access data, know and delete personal information collected
by businesses, opt-out of the sale of this information, and the right to non-discrimination for exercisin
these rights.
Ethical and rights-based principles for AI
Artificial intelligence and digital self-determination
The proliferation of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
(AI), as not a single technology but rather a set of technologies, is increasingly shaping the technologically-mediated spaces for individuals and communities to conduct their lives. From algorithmic recommendation in
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
and
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
platforms,
smart surveillance in policing, to automated resources allocation in public services, the extent of possible AI applications that can influence an individual's autonomy is continuously contested, considering the widespread
datafication
Datafication is a technological trend turning many aspects of our life into data which is subsequently transferred into information realised as a new form of value.
Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger introduced the term ''datafication'' ...
of people's lives across the socio-economic and political spheres today.
For example,
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
, a subfield of artificial intelligence, "allows us to extract information from data and discover new patterns, and is able to turn seemingly innocuous data into sensitive, personal data", meaning an individual's privacy and anonymity may be prone to vulnerabilities outside of the original data domain, such as having their social media data harvested for
computational propaganda in the election based on
micro-targeting.
Another sphere where AI systems can affect the exercising of self-determination is when the datasets on which algorithms are trained mirror the existing structures of
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
, thereby reinforcing structural discrimination that limits certain groups' access to fair treatment and opportunities. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, an AI recruiting tool used by
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
has shown to discriminate against female job applicants, while an AI-based modelling tool used by the Department of Human Services in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, to flag potential child abuse has shown to disproportionately profile the poor and racial minority, raising questions about how predictive variables in algorithms could often be "abstractions" that "reflect priorities and preoccupations".
Current landscape of AI principles relevant to digital self-determination
How states attempt to govern the AI industry can shape how AI applications are developed, tested and operated and in what ethical frameworks relevant to many forms of human interests, thereby affecting the degree of digital self-determination exercised by individuals and communities.
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of high-level principles and guidelines documents, providing suggestions for public-sector policies and private-sector code of conduct in a non-binding manner. Compared to the binding laws enacted by states, the landscape of AI ethics principles paints a more diverse picture, with governmental and nongovernmental organisations including private companies, academic institutions and civic society actively developing the ecosystem. A 2020 report by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
identified "over 160 organizational, national and international sets of AI ethics and governance principles worldwide, although there is no common platform to bring these separate initiatives together".
Common themes of AI principles have been emerging as research efforts develop, with many closely linked to the various conditions of digital self-determination, such as control over one's data, protection from biased treatment, and equal access to the benefits offered by AI. A 2020 publication by the
Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
studied thirty-six "especially visible or influential" AI principles documents authored by government and non-governmental actors from multiple geographical regions, and identified eight key themes:
* Privacy
* Accountability
* Safety and Security
* Transparency and Explainability
* Fairness and Non-discrimination
* Human Control of Technology
* Professional Responsibility
* Promotion of Human Values
However, the report also notes "a wide and thorny gap between the articulation of these high-level concepts and their actual achievement in the real world".
Examples of intergovernmental and governmental AI principles
Currently, few AI governance principles are internationally recognised. The "
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
Principles on AI", adopted by OECD Member States and nine other non-OECD countries in May 2019, integrates elements relevant to digital self-determination such as "inclusive growth", "well-being", "human-centered values and fairness", while emphasizing an individual's ability to appeal and "challenge the outcome of AI system" and the adherence of AI development to "internationally recognized labour rights".
On a national level, numerous state AI policies make reference to AI ethics principles, though in an irregular fashion. Such references can be standalone documents. For example,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
's government established its "Social Principles of Human-Centric AI", which is closely linked to its "AI strategy 2019: AI for Everyone: People, Industries, Regions and Governments", and a separate set of AI Utilization Guidelines that encourage voluntary adherence and emphasize that AI shall be used to "expand human abilities and creativity", shall not "infringe on a person's individual freedom, dignity or equality", and adheres to the "principle of human dignity and individual autonomy".
AI principles can also be incorporated into a national AI strategy, which primarily focuses on policy instruments advancing AI, such as investment in
STEM
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
education and public-private partnerships. For example,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
's AI strategy, "National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence" published in June 2018, identifies key areas of high national priority for AI development (healthcare, agriculture, education, urban-/smart-city infrastructure, transportation and mobility), with ethical topics such as privacy and fairness integrated as a forward-looking section.
Opportunities and challenges for AI principles to address self-determination
Non-binding AI principles suggested by actors inside or outside the government might sometimes be further concretized into specific policy or regulation. In 2020, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's government's advisory body on the responsible use of AI, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, proposed specific measures for government, regulators and industry to tackle algorithmic bias in the sectors of financial services, local government, policing and recruitment, with each area relevant to how individuals conduct their ways of life and access socio-economic opportunities without being subjected to unfair treatment.
Cultural and geographical representation has been highlighted as a challenge in ensuring the burgeoning AI norms sufficiently consider unique opportunities and risks faced by the global population, who exercise their autonomy and freedom in vastly different political regimes with varying degrees of rule of law. In 2020, a report published by the
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
reviewed 116 AI principles documents and found that "these soft law documents are being primarily developed in Europe, North America and Asia", while "the
global south is currently underrepresented in the landscape of organisations proposing AI ethics guidelines".
See also
*
Data sovereignty
Data sovereignty is the idea that data are subject to the laws and governance structures of the nation where they are collected. The concept of data sovereignty is closely linked with data security, cloud computing, network sovereignty and techno ...
*
Digital citizenship
The term digital citizen is used with different meanings. According to the definition provided by Karen Mossberger, one of the authors of ''Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation'', digital citizens are "those who use the in ...
*
Digital Identity
A digital identity is information used by computer systems to represent an external agent – a person, organization, application, or device. Digital identities allow access to services provided with computers to be automated and make it possibl ...
*
Digital rights
Digital rights are those human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks. The concept is particular ...
*
Digital self defence
*
Informational self determination
*
Self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
*
Self representation
*
Self-sovereign identity
Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an approach to digital identity that gives individuals control over the information they use to prove who they are to websites, services, and applications across the web. Without SSI, individuals with persistent ...
*
Surveillance capitalism
Surveillance capitalism is a concept in political economics which denotes the widespread collection and commodification of personal data by corporations. This phenomenon is distinct from government surveillance, though the two can reinforce each o ...
*
Technological sovereignty
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digital self-determination
Identity management
Digital technology
Human rights
E-government
Federated identity