HRW Day 6: Data and Democracy (Report)

Data and Democracy
with Varoon Bashyakarla

Human Rights Week, Day 6

Session: Data and Democracy

Speaker: Varoon Bashyakarla from Tactical Tech 

Date: 15 January 2021

Time: 5-6.30pm

Moderator: Aniruddha Phadke 

''What you buy, what you read, what you share online, who you associate with, what your mood is, where you work, what you do, what your health situation is, where you have donated, what clothing styles you like, what car models you buy, your favourite Cola brand, your favourite phone brand - all of this information is available to those with the budget to buy it and the algorithms to aggregate and sift through it.

That is where big data is changing the face of American politics."

- David Gerwitz, ZDNet Government (April 2015)

Resource person Varoon Bashyakarla from Tactical Tech familiarized us with this quote and pointed out how it remains relevant not just in American elections but globally. He mentioned a lot of data is Facebook and US-centric.

Internet is a democratic platform and therefore some kind of regulations and terms are to be put in place to have accountability about what should and shouldn't be on the internet, transparency with regards to how and why our data is being used is important.

The recent attack on the US Capitol, which was to a certain extent a result of provoking tweets on the internet, led to political unrest and is an example of why misleading information needs to be regulated globally.

People with political power have been using personal data for their benefits. Big data and analytics are at the core of making intelligent business decisions. The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight. Consumers on the internet like us have become 'product'.

Tactical Tech has researched more than 500 companies that use user data for their own purposes.

Data privacy has always been important. It’s why people put locks on filing cabinets and rent safety deposit boxes at their banks. But as more of our data becomes digitised, we share more information online, therefore data privacy is taking on greater importance.

The Data pyramid was introduced:-

~ Asset- Where is data collected from?

An asset is the lowest base of the pyramid. AB testing is one of the methods for experimentation of designs, colours, logos and keeping a track of how the voters have responded to these changes. Images are used to find out what users find engaging.

Eg. During Donald Trump's 2016 elections up to 1,75,000 variations of advertisements were used. Similar advertisements technique were used during the Indian elections.

Companies like L2, Aristotle, Cambridge Analytica have shown clear records of the data they have collected from users on their websites which accounts for millions.

~ Intelligence - The collected data from the second base is used to create or understand public opinion.

Political apps use an individual's 'contacts' list to cross-reference with their voter's list and eventually prepare a 'target' list. These applications have been used by many and their data is tracked, incentives like 'badges', 'points', 'scores' are given to the users of such applications to keep them engaged with the app for the long term. People get addicted to such apps which enables door to door canvassing and collection of data records.

Voters are tracked online by selling data to third party apps. Personal data is also traded by big companies. What voters post online, what they see and share is tracked. Social media data reveals what a voter thinks.

Companies like AutoPolitic clearly mention that they help in running elections using this 'social intelligence'. 'Targets' are identified and the process to influence them is put in place.

~ Influence - The collected data is used to influence or to a large extent manipulate public opinion for political gain in the highest base of the data pyramid.

Mr. Varoon mentioned that many of these sources including the BJP Campaign in India have been very invasive of user's privacy. These apps have asked and tracked more information than needed, including permissions to use camera and gallery information with no accountability of its usage.

Another example is of companies like Field Team 6 which tracked data to get people to vote for Democratic candidates in America.

'Geofence' is a worrying concept. A space formed to treat people in that area differently than others and to influence their data consumption with or without consent.

Eg. When we reach an airport we immediately receive messages greeting us and offering nearby places to visit.

Applications like Snapchat also used 'geofence' to target users, location access given to check weather updates is also tracked, applications sell the location data to third-party apps to influence the users in that area.

Political parties also bid on certain words on the internet so when users search for something and it includes those terms; very specific information, news or updates are shown in results. Words like 'scandal' and 'scam' are heavily bid to influence users with only certain results.

Companies like Deep Root use 'OCEAN' personality traits to track and influence user data, their choices, preferences. What voters look and where is also tracked using 'eye trackers' i.e where people focus on

Applications and websites under the banner of being user friendly and accessible collect unconsented data of these users.

We as users need to be aware of how and why our data is being collected. We need to raise questions as to why voter data is monitored. We need to value our right to privacy and strive to fight for it.

Varoon Bashyakarla along with his colleagues have created the 'DataDetoxKit' and he signed off by saying 'Start Valuing Your Privacy'.

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Email ID of the resource person - varoon@tacticaltech.org

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Report drafted by  PSA's President Sana Khan from TYBA Political Science.