Taxonomizing Data Privacy: Inquiring Data and its Fundamentals

~Raghav Ahooja*

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In any inquiry, be it philosophical, theological, or scientific; it remains imperative to take a step back and take stock of any given situation.  Before diving into the fundamentals of Data Privacy, it thus, befits to take stock of what is ‘Data.’

What is ‘data’?

The term ‘Data’ is the plural form of ‘datum’ which means fact. The term ‘fact’ further refers to an event or occurrence that is true or has some semblance of truth or at least the intention of being true. At its core, data is thought of as fungible, non-exclusive, and non-rivalrous. I argue that this does not hold true, even in the cyber, digital, and electronic context.

Its non-fungibility, exclusivity, and rivalry

Contrary to popular discourse, data can be identified and categorized as non-fungible, exclusive, and rivalrous. Case in point: NFTs. It is true that NFTs are usually thought of in a digital and virtual environment. However, that is not where the idea ends. At its deep core, an NFT represents immutability and stasis. What else in the non-digital world is so unique, that it is immutable, static, and non-fungible as well?

… A signature. Not even professional forgers can replicate with zero-error and zero-deviation an original signature. Thus, data even non-digital personal data is non-fungible. Maybe, we are thinking of data all wrong. Maybe fungibility is not the yardstick to define it with. What earlier, more experienced, and more learned scholars tried to hint at is data’s formlessness and shapelessness, its nebulosity. More than anything else, thus, data is nebulous.

Moving on to demystifying data’s exclusivity myth. So far, we have established that data is nebulous. An additional quality of data is ethereality, as suggested previously by scholars. Going a step further and backward, at the same time: data cannot be owned. Yes, data may be used and licensed and utilized, but never owned. This contention strikes deep at the heart of the idea that ‘data is exclusive.’ Data that assumes the personality of the person to whom it relates to is colloquially known as ‘personal data’. This personality of data has three vectors identity, precision, and verifiability. Thus, this personality, or the state of being personal, of data is proportional to the probability of the three vectors combined.  The more the probability, the more ‘personal’ the data is. In theory, this probability can never be 100% i.e. without any error or deviation. It can never be perfect. The most sophisticated form of identification technology are iris recognition systems. Even the most advanced iris recognition system method i.e. the Daugman algorithm identifies with an accuracy and precision of 99.90%. Even the most advanced method of capturing personal information remains imperfect to this day. This theorem thus proves that not all data let alone personal data can be captured, hence, not data all can be found. This ties back to the hypothesis that data is non-exclusive. It is not. Therefore, humans do not exclude data, data excludes them – making data not exclusive but elusive.

Busting the non-rivalry of data: since time immemorial, people have hoarded, gathered, and ‘hunted’ for commodity. The form and matter of this ‘commodity’ may have changed over the aeons of time; but never this datum. People are predestined to such proclivity. Our economy ordains rivalry. While the forms of the commodities have changed from gold to oil to grain to information in no particular order, the fact that you know what you know, the fact that someone else also knows this would lessen its value in your eyes. Why? Because the perceived informational value of this data is halved. This raises a set of questions about the fundamentals of the commodity economy: is any good truly ‘public’? Even goods and services naturally thought out to be public such as education, air, water, are suspiciously rival in post modern economics.

It appears as though rivalry is a given prerequisite for an information asset. Its protection from rivals seems a feature embedded into its creation. Thus, rather than rivalrous, data is more suitably, evaluable. Case in point: the monetization of data. Attaching monetary value to data formally or informally, directly or indirectly, means that it can be bought and sold as a good or service.

The Protection of Data

If there is anything that facing national security threats has taught us, it is solidarity, communion and the vasvikta of Viksit Bharat. We often use the term ‘Data Protection’ to refer to an umbrella of ideas and thoughts. All positive, somehow, which is academically unique and peculiarly placed.

‘National Security’, which in the context of information can be expressed as the desire of state to know so to protect its borders and its people, and ‘Privacy’ i.e. the desire of the individual to hide in self-limiting solitude, are as always in a mutable flux. If there is anything that 21^st Century or Post-Modern warfare has taught us, it is – cyberspace is a function of National Security. In a certain way, ‘Data Protection’ is the union of Security and Privacy.

Back to the basics

Fearing fear can end up being fatal in a state of data disorder. Yes, the State protects the territorial borders, but what about the territory of one’s mind? The safety, security, and order of one’s mind is the function of the individual. Thus, privacy is personal. So are privacy preferences.

However, the etymology of cyber, cybernetics, and cybersecurity suggests that the root word of this branch of terms refer to automa i.e. a non-human with agency. In other words, a non-human capable of vir or strength. No matter how humans advance, ironically enough, the essence which is morality-agnostic, remains the same. Technology or the use of tools itself uses the same tool as it always has – i.e. the tool of the word, now referred to fancily enough as ‘code’ which is nothing but the ability to speak to non-humans. To provide it agency or otherwise  delegate it with the provision of strength measured through computing power or memory or storage or speed, all of which have existed conceptually long before the advent of computers. Thus, for engineering to co-opt data post the 2000 revolution a.k.a. Y2K seems puerile.

Despite what Big Corp Inc. might have you believing, even ‘computers’ exist within a fixed environment which is bound by the rules of physics, chemistry, and biology. All the apps you have on your mobile device are businesses. Yes, you read that right! From the moment you turn on your phone, to the point it dies and you charge it, every pixel demands money, every hertz, every volt, every photo you click, every song you listen to, every byte of content you stream, read, or otherwise consume, is paid for, accounted for, and is chargeable.

The ability to hide it as free is the sleight of hand of technology companies. So that you only observe the last-mile delivery and you feel in control of your order as the delivery partner struggles to get your order delivered to you in less than 10 minutes.

Somehow, the more futuristic we become, the more primitive things seem. The more we move forward, the more our primitivity is amplified. The more it becomes important to take a step back and reset: oneself, one’s understanding of oneself, and one’s fundamentals. These opportunities to reassess are rare. Only in the deformation of an order that is existent, does a new order form.

It’s time to go back to the basics and learn, relearn, unlearn. Construct to deconstruct to construct. These platitudes might help you, the reader, through your journey.

Final words

Privacy becomes all-important as the tool which is morality-agnostic. A criminal disclaims a charge through self-incrimination as a right to privacy as claims a victim a harm of their right to have been left in solitude. It thus does not seem important to define privacy but to understand it, for it is not bereft of meaning. It transcends borders, languages, cultures, spheres of life, faiths, and most of all, us.

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*Raghav Ahooja is a Privacy and Cybersecurity Professional at a reputed Indian firm.

Views are disclaimed as personal.