After a few weeks of going through some aspects of datafication and its general impact on issues such as privacy, social justice, commercialisation and just general impact on society, it has to be admitted that this is an important subject that requires constant vigilance from the populace. As it has been noted in some of the posts, the primary motive of data ownership by global corporations is profit at the expense of the internet services users. There is a cat and mouse game between the corporations and regulators with regulators caught in bureaucratic red tape performing a tortoise-que dance around citizens’ data autonomy.
With increasing usage of datafication in development projects, the subject of data justice has come to the forefront as the data has become a requirement for donor agencies and government with perhaps scant attention paid to data justice of the people in the Global South mostly. The data is harvested, processed, and used to improve data algorithms to improve the Global North but with little trickling back to the Global South.
There is also the matter of global domination between China and the west, particularly the USA. These two blocks are vying for control in geopolitical and economic spheres. The internet, AI and datafication are increasingly becoming important in trying to gain influence over large swathes of the globe. The match towards dominance begins to resemble the cold war era demarcation into east vs west.
However, in the face of these seemingly global issues, it must not be forgotten how data and its increasing usage in everyday public interactions are affecting millions of people. For example, data collected about individuals can be used during the employment screening process, mortgage application, bank loan, accommodation approval, and the list goes on and on. This is not a dystopian science fiction fantasy but something that is already happening.
We, anonymice, have enjoyed exploring these subjects and we hope that you, our readers, have had their curiosity piqued and perhaps given some impetus to investigate what is happening in your locale.
We thank all our readers for visiting and engaging in our blog. The conversations we have begun are far from over. We hope we have inspired and informed. We learned a lot about the blogging process, while also having the opportunity to discuss topics which we deem to be important in the age of information and datafication.
So long, and thanks for all the…cookies!