Data colonization is the process by which multinational corporations claim ownership of and privatize the data that is produced by their users and citizens, which gives them disproportionate power and ability to exploit other countries. Digital Dictatorship is when few groups, corporations, and even governments can monopolize the immense power of data and Al to create an extremely unequal society or totalitarian regime.

This may lead to several issues:

• Economic monopoly, as across the world most industries are dependent on harvested data. For e.g. in the textile sector, companies would gather data on customers’ likes, preferences, and trends. So if a company can colonize this data, it can monopolize the textile industry.
• Technological monopoly, as all of the sophisticated technologies like Al and machine learning are produced in a few developed countries and can be used to exploit the rest of the world.
• Privacy issues, as people spend more time online, and extremely personal aspects can be shared with different stakeholders without consent.
• Infiltration of technology in daily lives along with ongoing developments in Big Data analytics, has provided surveillance opportunities for governments and private players.
• The volume of data on the internet is expanding exponentially and the spread of new technologies like IoT, Big Data poses a threat as all these tools collect data. It may lead to theft of data.

Steps that can be taken in this regard:

• There is a need to intensify efforts on international rule-making in the digital economy, especially in data flows and e-commerce, while promoting enhanced protections for IPR, personal information, and cyber security.
• For effective implementation of the data protection regime, it is imperative that all the stakeholders should align their policies with the requirement of data protection and explore the possible consent requirements at the time of data collection.
• There is a need to create interoperable data-sharing frameworks, that support the responsible and ethical cross-border sharing of data.
• Due importance must be given to public awareness, better implementation and regulation as well as effective grievance redressal mechanisms.

With the increasing use of data-driven technology there is a serious threat of data colonization and digital dictatorship making it imperative that global data governance should be transparent and developing countries should be helped with digital economic policy.