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Safeguarding digital rights that is just a click away
As governments shift online in keeping with technological advancements and trends, a more innovative approach is needed to adjust the governance framework to regulate digital government, including personal data security and privacy.
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Illustration of data protection (Shutterstock.com/Boiko Y)
T
he global COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the way governments interact with their people. Internet and technology have been used in an unprecedented way for tracking, marketing and informing policies. However, behind this increased use of technology lays a very important issue: Have our rights also become digitalized?
At a 2018 forum, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) emphasized the importance of digital governance while raising concerns about how data-driven innovation and technology risked breaching personal data and privacy. The key takeaway from the forum was how to prevent digital transformation from breaching human rights as more and more companies and governments push technological innovations without anticipating their impacts.
Cases involving personal security, information leaks, misinformation, fraud, cyberattacks and many other forms of as yet unregulated illicit activities have raised questions about whether governance can match the growth digital woes in terms of pace.
The global Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) index for 2020 reveals the predicament of this issue in evaluating digital governance at 26 global tech giants, which serve more than 4.6 billion users and have a combined market cap of nearly US$11 trillion.
The best performing global technology companies like Twitter, Ooredoo and Telefonica rated only a D (40-50 percent) in the 2020 RDR. Meanwhile, supply chain giant Amazon ranked at the bottom of 14 digital platforms for reportedly having less transparency in how it handled or secured user information and data retention policies. These findings have raised an alert for governments as to whether their policymaking process could balance the speed of the digital economy.
Based on this year’s data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), only 128 out of 192 countries (66 percent) regulate personal data security and privacy, while 10 percent has started drafting regulations and 19 percent has no regulations. The most recent example is China, whose government imposed a strict regulation on digital companies with clear boundaries and a hefty fine for perpetrators.
What about Indonesia?
