The need for individuals to understand the importance of ownership and protection of their own digital data (read: digital person) is now more important than ever. This is because our individual economic value and our ability to self determination exists increasingly in our digital self.
As it currently stands, we do not own ourselves online. Put simply, we are owned by others. I argue that our digital self is currently a slave, as defined by the following conditions:
Our digital self, that is the entire data set of our interaction with Internet and other information and communication technology-delivered services, is the property of either non-government enterprises (both privately held and publicly listed) by right of the current best practice user terms or governments and their bureaucracies by law or policy.
Whilst we opt in to these systems, the are presented without alternative, other than accepting economic disempowerment.
Historically companies and governments have had to collect from individuals manually the information they require to provide a service. Through the efficiencies created by technology companies and governments are now able to collect vast amounts of information automatically, with nominal overhead.
What is claimed by these actors is that the data is used to provide a better service. In the lingo of the the capitalist, to improve “customer service”. In the lingo of the bureaucrat or state regime, to keep us “safe”.
Over time, my understanding of the most fundamental components of the human condition has taught me that we are generally fundamentally conflicted. Those capitalists have proven themselves over time to not be trusted to put the interests of their “customers” over their shareholders/investors/owners/masters. Why? Because the corporation does not serve the market, it profits off the market. It services the market as a secondary function. Hence, corporations who do not profit, no longer service markets.
Governments have arguably an even worse track record of behaving in the interest of their constituents. In fact, the more powerful centralised governments become, the less they do to hide the fact that they act in the interest of those who hold a centralised ideology.
The dawn of the Internet age saw private corporations become the literal owners of huge swathes of the people of the world’s digital identities. They were known as “users”. For the best part of two decades our digital selves have been horse traded in private deals and ownership of us has been moved around the world, often without our knowledge, to jurisdictions where private interests can profit from us without supporting society in away way. Ownership of an individual, even in part (digital), without consent, for private profit, creates a new form of human trafficking not seen before. And like with all forms of human exploitation, little to no care is given for those who are being exploited. User sustenance is maintained at a baseline which allows for an optimised “user LTV”. Providing slaves room and board does nothing to assuage the fact that they share nothing of the profits of their labour, being their true value.
Now, with the rise of the AI, the proliferation of biometric-based data such as voice, fingerprint and facial recognition, we the people need new protections from these large, highly organised and resourced, supranational, pan-jurisdictional actors who are incentivised to exploit us to no end.
I believe that the simplest of all solutions is simply to make any data created by a person, whether consciously, actively, passively, accidentally, whether in text form, an image, biometric scan or anything else caused by the interaction of the individual with a technology application be marked as copyright to that individual. If a corporation wishes to license the data, they can make the request, if the individual willing licenses it to them, their is consent. The market will set a fair value through competition and the correct return will allocate to the individual. This does not transfer any wealth from one party to another. Rather, it prevents a theft of wealth by one party without the consent of the other.
The failure of the bureaucracy under which we all live to provide such protections stems from a somewhat more insidious root. Unfortunately the structure of government we have inherited from the generation before us has little incentive to provide us with such protections, as they too are seeking sovereignty over us. Privacy is nothing less than a crime in many circumstances, and many within government are advocating fiercely for any technology that provides privacy to be “criminal”. The growing consensus amongst governments, including those which claim to be liberal democracies, is that governments first and foremost hold the right to data created by the people they govern. The people do not have a right to know what data they generated is being held by their government, let alone have the right to demand the deletion of this data. This is all being done under the guise of keeping us “safe”.
With the increasingly global coordination of governments around the world, being driven by the proliferation of Intergovernmental Organsations that operate beyond the reach of the democratic institutions theoretically controlled by the people (although this is arguable), the people need a way to coordinate, lest we all end relegating countless future generations to slavery. We the people need DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations), being internet-native entities running on blockchain that facilitate coordination of our resources and help build the of consensus of people in a global, transparent, immutable way. I believe that DAOs, however imperfect or experimental they currently are, are the critical piece of infrastructure the people need to push back against the ever encroaching tentacles of unaccountable, corrupt governments and their profit-at-any-cost capitalist allies. Without sovereign rights to our data, or digital identity, in a digital world. We are slaves. We need DAOs, by the people for the people, in order to save us from the enslavement of the elite globalist network of supranational government and international corporation.
Viva la DAO!
