Barbenheimer future of India’s digital technology
Current Situation:
- At 75 years old, India is still experimenting with data privacy. We have only had a clear right to privacy for the past five years.
- A legislation on the protection of digital data, considerably different from the one that was discussed for half a decade, is about to be passed.
- The way the public thinks and acts on this is also changing. Personal data pools are being gathered and processed all around us in the meantime.
Future of digital technology in India:
- India’s digital and lived realities will continue to be shaped over time by the collision of technologies, regulations, and practises. Numerous possibilities, including the two presented above, could occur.
- The first, which I call the Barbenheimer future, would place a strong emphasis on technological solutionism paired with digital escapism.
- The second aspires to a future where digital rights and privacy are more respected by imagining a more equal digital society.
Future of Indian digital technology under the term ‘Barbenheimer’:
- The online sensational term “Barbenheimer” resulted from the films Barbie and Oppenheimer’s simultaneous release and contrastive themes.
- The foundation of an Oppenheimer-style future will be steadfast reliance in technology to run the entire political system.
- Digital technologies, which frequently carry significant risks, will be portrayed as the road to dominance, development, and empowerment. A select committee of technical experts, bureaucrats, and politicians will decide which technology India should accept and how, much like the guys who developed Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb.
- As privacy and other rights are habitually sacrificed to security and nation-building purposes, laws will become a veil for protection.
- For the greatest welfare of the greatest number, it will be necessary to take the bitter pills of surveillance, data leaks, and different types of exclusion as everyday societal realities.
- A Barbie-like metaverse that has been carefully curated by major internet companies will be available to residents in parallel.
- Life will be seen through rose-colored glasses in this escapism, where we’ll be surrounded by other Barbies and Kens who share our viewpoints and imagine having the rights we want.
- However, this will undoubtedly just be a virtual reality and artificial intelligence-powered simulation. The feedstock and output of this hyper-personalized ecosystem will be personal data.
- Digital citizens would either be considered as subjects to be “protected” and governed by the state during this process or as users to be amused and monitored by businesses.
In the Equitable Digital Future scenario:
- The egalitarian digital future, however, will be created with the needs of its citizens in mind. The citizens’ interactions with the government and ethical private actors will reflect the equity of this system.
- This hypothetical scenario implies that India will soon implement a solid legal framework for data protection, supported by a free-standing data protection agency.
- This law, in contrast to the current one, will include substantial safeguards that are applicable to both governmental and private organisations.
- Parallel to extensive surveillance changes, strong procedural safeguards and judicial scrutiny will ensure that people’s privacy is maintained.
- The development of privacy-enhancing technologies will also benefit an equal digital future. All transactions will typically process encrypted data, and data anonymization techniques will have advanced greatly.
- India will also pursue real data empowerment by using its experience in creating digital public goods.
- It may be argued that this architecture empowers data consumers more than it does individuals. However, as India’s data protection regime matures, it will lead to a bottom-up redesign of these systems to promote greater agency for people and communities as well as user accountability.
In addition to digital rights, human rights, accountability, and trust must be upheld:
- India will eventually have widespread internet access, a highly developed cyber security system, complex online speech and expression legal precedents, and a solid framework for AI administration.
- Since human rights, accountability, and trust should have been prioritised, all of these instruments should have developed through transparent dialogue with stakeholders.
Conclusion:
- India is at a turning point in digital governance thanks to the new data protection law and the proposed Digital India Act.
- Where India finds itself in the next 25 years will depend on the decisions we make today. This entails not only decisions about policies but also ones about society, technology, and individuals.
- The combination of these options should lead us closer to the just future envisioned here than to the Barbenheimer one.
