The geopolitics of Big Data
Big Data has become a crucial geopolitical issue as it allows those who own it and know how to process it to determine people’s behaviours accurately, and thus to influence them. It not only disrupts the economy by giving immense power to tech giants but also undermines the democratic notion of freedom. Nonetheless, access to the internet is becoming increasingly normal as a 2010 BBC poll found that 79% of people in 26 countries considered Internet access to be a fundamental human right (BBC, 2010).
While an accurate definition of the term Big Data has not yet been found, I will define it here as the massive quantity of information collected about human experiences.
Data has become a crucial issue for the following reasons. It allowed an increase in the accuracy of consumer behaviour modelisation, which enabled commercial and political advertising to be improved with more accuracy. Jaron Lanier summed up the shift ‘we need to call social media, behaviour modification empire.’
In this essay, I will show in a first part how Big Data has been used in the US via the concept of Surveillance Capitalism; as well as significant data usage in China with their social credit system.
In the second part, I will attempt to show how EU members are reliant on US and Chinese actors for their digital needs as well as the EU strategy for digital independence.
Surveillance capitalism in the US
Zuboff coined several definitions for surveillance capitalism (SC):
‘-Surveillance capitalism as a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales.
-Surveillance capitalism as a movement that aims to impose a new collective order based on total certainty.
-An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of people’s sovereignty.’
Words have an insidious but still significant impact on the way we perceive society. Aware of this, Zuboff refuses to address big data as a solely technological phenomenon with no political intention. For her, Big data is instead part of a stage of capitalism: Surveillance capitalism. Her strategy aims at replacing informative technology in the social context that produces them. That is to understand the discourse and the purpose for which those informative technologies have been designed. This discourse is a fundamentally capitalist one where Big Data is one more technology to realise a more considerable profit margin.
Zuboff states that computer mediation meets the logic of accumulation; she makes the distinction between informative technologies and other types of technologies: it automates information via textualisation of human behaviour. She adds that this disrupts the logic of unknown functioning of the market law in the former neoliberal economic ideal, where the consumer ( or Homo Economicus) is described as being rational. That contradicts the fact that more and more compulsive actions are reported.
Zuboff also stressed on the personalisation and customisation aspect of SC.
Through a series of algorithms, tech giants determine what our tastes are supposed to be, thus taking serendipity out of our experience. This phenomenon has been coined as algorythmocracy. It applies to a range of subjects from Youtube videos, to political advertising. This raises issues such as:
-Do we want to meet our lovers uniquely based on what a third party has decided is the best match to pair with?
-Are elections result legitimate when voters have been manipulated into voting for/against a specific candidate?
Facebook sold the data of 87 million individuals to a third party for political advertising and digital campaigning purposes in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This episode triggered an unresolved, worldwide debate about the validity of the result, and this is just one example.
Seventy countries have now been subject to disinformation campaigns. Political advertising has been around for a long time. However, can political freedom still exist in circumstances where people are likely to change their minds when confronted with emotional stimulation?’
Aside from data used for political advertising from the inside, operation from one country to another has been detected. At least seven countries tried to influence views outside their borders: China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, China also uses Big Data to the advantage of the Chinese Communist Party.
China’s social credit system
The Chinese social credit system is, first of all, a record of a detailed profile of citizens. Based on this data, regional rules will apply positive or negative incentives to make citizens behave in a certain way. Among the bad behaviours are jaywalking, excessing speed limits, playing too many video games. Giving to charities or having kids yields points and citizens are attributed local awards for their ‘good citizenship’.
To illustrate, if someone fails to pay their fines, they risk being blacklisted, deemed unable to buy train and plane tickets. The only way to resolve the issue is then to pay back debts. There is even an application that indicates if people around are in debt or not.
Even though experts acknowledge that the system is not mandatory, they agree to say that there are pressures to do so.
The argument used by the government is the imperative to build trust among citizens to resolve problems such as food quality l, pollution, or employers not paying their workers. It covers up the CCP’s consistent desire to expand its power.
China’s social credit system has emerged via Ant Financial’s Zhima Credit, a branch of Alibaba, one of China’s giant tech companies that use Big Data.
China also possesses nearly half of the world’s cameras as well as one of the most advanced systems of facial recognition.
Some experts are scared the system would divide Chinese society by class depending on their social score. As for now, it is difficult to say if it has brought more unity or division into Chinese society.
Problems and differences in both model
In the first part, I will list the common traits between the US and the Chinese model. In the second part, I will list the differences between the two.
Foucault might have said that Surveillance Economy, which encompasses surveillance capitalism as well as China’s Big Data scheme, is the ultimate panopticon. A space where private experiences become rarer and where we are continually being watched, evaluated and disciplined.
There have been numerous debates on the power of individual maximum potential freedom, as consumer and voter behaviour is more and more efficiently influenced. A sensible conclusion from this essay might be that in practice, the practical freedom of individuals has been reduced.
Experts from the Metrics wrote on China’s digital strategy: ‘the unofficial slogan “First develop, then regulate,” the government enables commercial actors to innovate and swiftly produce market-ready products for a digital ecosystem protected from foreign competition.’ This slogan seems to be similar to the US’ policy.
It is, however, essential to note that China’s decision-making processes come with downsides as it does not always allocate funds most efficiently. This is a parallel with the US system as competing for interest between tech giants in the US does not always align with the US state strategy.
As for the differences between the two models, the Chinese system will undoubtedly allow more coherence between the geopolitical objective of the states and the BATX objectives. Besides, it has the advantage to be more strict on its restriction of potential competitor access to its internal market.
Next, I will discuss the possible outcomes for the future of GAFAMs. However, when I use this acronym, it is important to stress that for the issues discussed in this essay Google and Facebook are the key players as their business model is mainly based on service in exchange for data.
In the US, the state of the GAFAM will depend on the future political landscape of US politics. Candidates at the next presidential elections have very different discourses about GAFAM and the power that the state should be allowed to hold against them. For instance, Elizabeth Warren clearly stated that GAFAMS must be dismantled while Donald Trump negotiated a tax deal with Apple.
As for political implications in the US, it will depend if US upcoming governments have an agenda that would take away more and more power from the state. It will also depend upon the existence of a counter-power opposing the growth of GAFAM. At worst, the US could end up with no democratically elected GAFAM that would be overpowering the state. Jaron Lanier put forward an alternative which would be for Google and Facebook to change their business model by charging some of their services in exchange for a service that would allow space for freedom and intellectual independence. In, Who Owns Our Future, he also suggested that social media users should be paid in exchange for their data whether they produce or consume content. If we do not tackle this problem, he warns that the wealth could switch from the middle class (hence participating in making it disappear) to Google and Facebook, broadening the wealth gap. He adds that insurance companies could become so efficient at calculating risk that this could create huge gaps between insurance companies that master big data and those who do not. If we push the utilitarian reasoning further, it could lead to some obligations like forbiddance of smoking, engage in sports or avoid foods high in fat if one wants to stay insured.
I would add that there is a compelling cognitive dissonance between the libertarian fascination for tech giants and the increasing influence those giants develop on human freedom. Moreover, studies have found that GAFAM leaders have certain personality traits leading to the lack of empathy, hence adding more uncertainty to their plans for the future.
In this second part, I attempt to explain how the EU is already reliant on China and the US big data companies and what is the EU strategy to build its digital independence.
It must be stressed that the complicated structure and decision-making processes of the EU makes its significant data initiatives very decentralised and uncoordinated even though the EU commission is trying to foster the ‘best’ initiatives via an elitist process.
How the EU is reliant on Chinese and US ICT actors
To put it simply, thanks to disrupting technologies, China and the US might raise the standard of productivity and competition to an unacceptable level for the EU. This could ultimately lead to technological enslavement of the EU. As for now, the EU is already reliant on US and Chinese ICT actors, as I will demonstrate.
To start with, almost half of Europe’s population, and over a third of its labour force, lack digital skills. In particular, there are not enough specialists for the growing ICT (Information and Communication Technology) sector.
As for cybersecurity, the EU is confronted with growing Chinese commercial espionage and cyber-crime. Some also fear that the 5G installation in the EU could make EU citizens’ data available to China. Companies like Huawei, Alibaba or Tencent are already involved Europe-wide in telecommunications networks, data centres and online payment systems.
China is also a leader in quantum computing.
Similar critics have been made of TIk-Tok, now the third biggest social network after Facebook and Instagram, counting 500 million users. The problem is that all data centres of this application are in China. With facial recognition technology, it could technically allow China to build a database of individual profiles of EU citizens.
There have been some initiatives to digitalise government orders to only administrative processes. This coined the term of ‘eGovernment’.
Critics emerged when it has been found that many websites operated by EU member state governments contained embedded tracking from ad technology providers.
The same remark could be made on EU members military, although it seems to be much more digital independence and security when it comes to this sector.
EU plans to regain its data sovereignty.
In this part, I will demonstrate how the EU is organising an offensive and digital defensive strategy.
A defensive attempt of the EU to legislate on Big Data is the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. Its objectives are the following:
-Create a single digital market for 500 million consumers.
-Reinforced the security to avoid data breaches.
-Preserve the rights of individuals over data ownership.
-Preserve Data governance over external interest.
In terms of concrete results, since 2014, the GDPR has led to 126 million dollar fines in total.
For instance, for Facebook, a violation of the GDPR could lead to a fine up to 4 per cent of the company’s GDP. However, it is still unclear in what condition could such a fine take effect and if it would be significant for Facebook. In another example, it leads to only a 50 million dollar fine.
The GDPR, including whether an enterprise must have a data protection officer, have been criticised for potential administrative burden and unclear compliance requirements.
The GDPR has also been described as failing to tackle GAFA’s threat effectively by not putting the fines prices high enough while damaging the EU, developing a digital ecosystem with cumbersome paperwork.
One problem is that it seems easier for EU presidents to look modern and ready to tackle digital issues rather than tackling it. The example below should illustrate this thought.
Cédric O, French Secretary of State for Digital Economy has organised a meeting for French president Emmanuel Macron with Tech giant leaders such as UBER, Google or Facebook.
However, this meeting ended up being the only representative of the balance of power between those two actors. It was a PR stunt for those tech giants in search of a friendly image towards Europeans. On Macron’s side, it polished his image of a visionary, modern and young president that he struggled to construct.
One crucial initiative of the EU is the Digital Champions (DC) initiatives. It aims at making the EU more competitive on the digital market. It consists of the nomination of one Digital Champion per member, they then meet twice a year and select, in a very elitist fashion, fund and advise Europeans projects which stand out.
Projects include, for instance, training for young people, e.g. data school project which helps citizens develop data skills. Another example is the Mediamaster game which has the same goals but aims at children and uses games. It also includes data training for older citizens who want to change their job for an ICT job with Make It Work.
The last DC’s meeting highlighted the lack of human resources the DG schemes as the head of the meeting warned that DGs did not have enough time and energy to complete as many projects as they would like to.
Future perspectives
In order to explain the future perspective of the EU’s future, I think this diagram is a good sum-up of the situation:
Zuboff also notes that: ‘This emerging logic (of surveillance capitalism) is not only shared by Facebook and many other large Internet-based firms, it also appears to have become the default model for most online startups and applications.”
It follows from this that even in the most optimistic scenario about the EU unification for digital independence, unless the capitalist logic is switched to more socialist logic, it is difficult not to imagine the increasing loss of EU citizens’ freedom. However, if Data Literacy projects and real efforts on education are made, EU citizens could lead discussions and ethical model democracies and market economy in the digital age.
References
Shoshana Zuboff (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile Books.
Nicole Kobie (2019) ‘The Complicated Truth about China’s Social Credit System’ in Wired 07.06.19
https://www.merics.org/en/papers-on-china/chinas-digital-rise
Bibliography
Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings. Verso, 1995.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin, 1986.
Gilles Deleuze (1995) ‘Control Society: A Postscript’ in Negotiations.
Gilles Babinet nominated digital champion by the European Commission, the title given to the best EU entrepreneurs to help the EU develop its Big Data independence.
Vice President of the French National Digital Council, Conseil national du numerique or CNUM.
Interview on Thinkerview, French youtube channel, English subtitles available.
Digital champions meetings reports.
Cédric O, French Secretary of State for Digital Economy.
Laurent Alexandre: The intelligence War: Artificial Intelligence Versus ( La Guerre des intelligences)
https://www.merics.org/en/china-mapping/propaganda-beyond-the-great-firewall
https://www.merics.org/en/papers-on-china/chinas-digital-rise
Yuval Noah Harari
