Navigating the Dataverse: Privacy, Technology ... - The ICHRP

The Expanding Dataverse
Biometric IDs exist in Thailand and are under discussion in India. 117 In certain respects the
non-West is racing ahead of the West in its acquisition of invasive data-collection technologies.
As suggested at the outset of Chapter 4, there is reason to think that these trends will generate
more cause for anxiety in the South than in the North, for structural reasons that are historical,
technological, economic and legal. These concerns are set out below.
History
This is not the place to go into the vast and diverse histories of the world’s countries. It is
nevertheless worth drawing attention to one simple if blunt common denominator in much of the
world: postcolonial status. Colonialism carries little explanatory power for the vast differences
between the world’s many states today. But there are some similarities, and these tend to be
structural. Colonialism left behind a number of important legacies: linguistic, cultural, political,
and, perhaps above all, legal and economic. The latter two bear closer examination.
As to law, regardless of the coloniser, most countries took into independence a
fundamentally liberal legal framework that already assumed the public–private distinction
in some form and provided a platform for its extension, as has generally occurred.
The principal legacy of colonialism is the state form itself, the adoption of a modern
administrative apparatus. This paradigmatic political form was subsequently preserved
and defended through the era of decolonisation. Today, international recognition and
support is reserved for states that endorse and enforce the kinds of objectives and
priorities discussed in Chapters 1 through 3 (a clear public–private distinction, private
protections and freedoms (human rights), security and economic growth).
Regardless of the coloniser, most countries took into independence a
fundamentally liberal legal framework that already assumed the public–
private distinction in some form and provided a platform for its extension, as has
generally occurred.
The economic legacy too is important because colonial powers everywhere steered
the dependent economies of the colonies in certain directions. Notably, they were
reoriented towards international (primarily metropolitan) markets. They adopted and
applied standard liberal policy assumptions with regard to the appropriate approach
to and governance of economic growth. Although in the immediate post-colonial era,
state-led industrial-intensive growth was the norm in much of the world, economic policy
shifted in the 1980s towards a more liberal model, largely through the intervention of the
principal international financial institutions (the World Bank and IMF). Today, that trend
continues, integrating nicely with an overarching international economic law framework
that likewise privileges private actors.
This history of colonialism, legal shaping, and economic intervention has contributed to
a range of well-documented outcomes at global level today. The more visible of these,
relevant to our present themes, include:
▪
Powerful migratory flows into the metropolitan centres of Europe, Northern America
and Australia;
117 Kitiyadisai (2005); Usha Ramanathan, “A Unique Identity Bill”, 45 Economic and Political Weekly 10 (July
24, 2010).
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