Centre for Internet and Society

Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India, New Delhi, Feb 27-28

sumandro — 2018-02-26T11:04:24Z

It is our privilege to collaborate with LabEx ICCA (Université Paris 13), UNESCO New Delhi, Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), and Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS), to organise a Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India. The symposium gathers researchers and practitioners engaging with the changing landscape of cultural and creative industries in India in the context of the rapid expansion of digital technologies and social media. We invite you to join us for a critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around cultural and creative industries, to identify what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematise the questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity, and labour.

Venue: Conference Room, UNESCO New Delhi, 1 San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, 110021 (Note: Please bring your identity document to enter the UNESCO premises)

RSVP: Registration is closed

Booklet: Download (PDF)

Programme: Download (PDF)

Poster: Download (PNG)

Organisers: LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13, UNESCO New Delhi, Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS), and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India

Concept Note

Digital technologies involve, accompany and provoke changes in the structuring of industrial sectors. How are they more particularly transforming the creation, production, distribution processes in cultural and creative industries? What are reconfigurations and challenges associated with the rise in power of actors from the industries of communication and information? What are the new stakeholder strategies, economic models and power relationships involved? Does digital have the effect of empowering the smallest actors / self-employed / freelancers or on the contrary does it allow large players to relieve themselves of the promotion, production costs on individual creator?

A growing interest in fields such as digital humanities, new media, digital cultures and the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector is another important development here. The rise of a number of digital initiatives in arts and humanities practice, research and teaching has also brought up significantly the question of new skills or expertise required in these fields. The need for digital literacy and ‘re-skilling’ to adapt to new forms of arts and humanities practice in a digital environment has often come with much criticism, as it is viewed as an effort towards vocationalisation and professionalization of these disciplines, a result of the changing mandates of the university and higher education in general. How do we then productively engage with these questions of skill, expertise and labour that goes into the building of new digital industries, which are often located within and at the periphery of academia and creative practices? Importantly, how can concerns about a perceived conflict of creativity and industry be addressed as these transformations take place rapidly with the advent of the digital is an important point of focus.

A critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around creative industries would offer ways of identifying what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematize for us questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity and labour. The conflation and overlap of both ‘cultural’ and ‘creative industries’ and the location of these terms within a larger discourse around policy, economic development, livelihoods and rights, takes on different dimensions post the digital turn. In the context of initiatives like Digital India, and efforts to consolidate an IPR regime, the implications of policy reforms for creative work, especially that performed within informal/underground economies and in the cultural heritage sector are many. These discussions would inform and draw from the ongoing efforts in fostering of a digital economy in India, and the many ways in which it determines cultural production in the rest of the world.

Topics that will be addressed at the symposium include, but are not restricted to:

- Digital turns and transformations in cultural and creative industries

- Media infrastructure, digital platforms, and changing landscape of actors

- Digital transitions in the Indian news industry

- Online/offline lives of creative industries and media consumption

Presented by the Labex ICCA and the Center for Internet and Society (CIS), the symposium will gather Indian, French, and international specialists in the cultural industries, new media and technology, information and communication sciences, and social sciences but also professionals and industrial actors in the cultural and artistic sectors. The event is driven an ambition to promote the creation of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional Franco-Indian research network to initiate, develop and share research on cultural industries in India and more widely in South Asia.

Organising Committee

- Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13 / CSH)

- Philippe Bouquillion (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13)

- Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)

- Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)

- Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)

Symposium Programme (Draft)

First Day – Tuesday, February 27, 2018

10:00-10:30
Tea and Coffee

10:30-11:00
Welcoming Address
Snigdha Bisht (UNESCO Cultural Department)
Introductions
Shailendra Sigdel (UNESCO Institute for Statistics), Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)

11:00-12:30
Session 1: Digital Opportunities and Challenges in the Cultural Industries
Speakers: Tanishka Kachru (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad), Akshaya Kumar (IIT Indore), and Vivan Sharan (KOAN Advisory)
Chair: Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH)

12:30-13:30
Lunch

13:30-15:00
Session 2: Digital Transitions in the News Landscape
Speakers: Zeenab Aneez (Freelance Journalist), Ravichandran Bathran (Dalit Camera), and Franck Rebillard (University of Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and Labex ICCA)
Chair: Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)

15:00-15:30
Tea and Coffee

15:30-17:00
Session 3: Technology, Creativity, and (Re)Skilling
Speakers: Padmini Ray Murray (Srishti School of Art Design and Technology), Sneha Raghavan (Asia Art Archive), and Xenia Zeiler (University of Helsinki)
Chair: Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)

Second Day – Wednesday, February 28, 2018

10:00-10:30
Tea and Coffee

10:30-12:30
Session 4: Digital Platforms and Media Distribution
Speakers: Narendra Ganesh (KPMG), Mae Thomas (Maed in India), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), and Nikhil Pahwa (Medianama)
Chair: Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)

12:30-13:30
Lunch

13:30-15:00
Session 5: Copyright, Creative Content, and Rights of Performers
Speakers: Nandita Saikia (Lawyer), Anubha Sinha (The Centre for Internet and Society), and Manojna Yeluri (Artistik License)
Chair: Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia)

15:00-15:30
Tea and Coffee

15:30-17:00
Session 6: Technologies of Aesthetic Imagi/nation
Speakers: Farrah Miranda (Artists), Rashmi Munikempanna (Artist), Swati Janu (Architect), and Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)
Chair: Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)

17:00-18:00
Concluding Remarks
Speakers: Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society), Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)
Chair: Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)

Location of Venue

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018

Platforms, Power, and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India

Aayush Rathi, and Ambika Tandon — 2021-07-07T15:19:37Z

CIS has been undertaking a two-year project studying the entry of digital platforms in the domestic and care work in India, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network. Implemented through 2019-21, the objective of the project is to use a feminist lens to critique platform modalities and orient platformisation dynamics in radically different, worker-first ways. Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi led the research team at CIS. The Domestic Workers’ Rights Union is a partner in the implementation of the project, as co-researchers. Geeta Menon, head of DWRU, was an advisor on the project, and the research team consisted of Parijatha G.P., Radha Keerthana, Zeenathunnisa, and Sumathi, who are office holders in the union and are responsible for organising workers and addressing their concerns.

The Executive Summary for the project report is below.

The full report, ‘Platforms, power, and politics: Perspectives from domestic and care work in India’, can be found here.

The press release can be found here.

Introduction

Paid domestic and care work is witnessing the entry of digital intermediaries over the past decade. More recently, there has been tremendous growth of digital platforms. This holds the potential to impact millions of workers in the sector, which is characterised by a long history of informality and exclusion from rights-according legal frameworks. Digital intermediation of domestic and care work has been a space of high-growth, but also high-attrition. In India, order books of digital platforms providing domestic and care work services were reported to have been growing by upto 60 percent month-on-month in 2016. This is expected to shift the organisation of workers and employment relations profoundly.

Broadly, the discourse on digital platforms providing home-based services can be summarised as follows: proponents argue that digitisation will act as a step towards bringing formalisation to the sector, while critics argue that platforms could replicate the exploitation of workers by further disguising the employer-employee relationship. Similar debates around lack of protections and precarity have also taken place in other occupations in gig work such as transportation and food delivery. In fact, the similarity in precarity and the informal nature of this relationship across gig work and domestic work has led to domestic workers being labelled the original gig workers. Domestic work is a particularly vulnerable and unprotected sector, which makes work in the sector qualitatively different from most other sectors in the gig or sharing economy.

Through a feminist approach to digital labour, our project aimed to examine the dynamics of platformisation in, and of domestic or reproductive care work. Our hypothesis was that platforms are reconfiguring labour conditions, which could empower and/or exploit workers in ways qualitatively different from non-standard work off the platform. In order to interrogate this further, we studied several aspects of the work relationship, including wages, conditions of work, social security, skill levels, and worker surveillance off platforms.

Methodology

We borrowed from ethnographic methods and feminist principles to co-design and implement the research tools with grassroots workers and organisers. Between June to November 2019, we conducted 65 in-depth semi-structured interviews primarily in New Delhi and Bengaluru. A majority of these were with domestic workers who were seeking or had found work through platforms. We also did interviews with workers who had found work through traditional placement agencies to compare our findings, and with representatives from platforms, government labour departments, and workers collectives. Of the workers we interviewed, a majority were women, but men were included as well. Interviews in New Delhi were undertaken by CIS, while interviews with workers in Bengaluru were undertaken by grassroots activists in Bengaluru, affiliated with the Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU).

In implementing the data collection approach, we employed feminist methodological principles of intersectionality, self-reflexivity, and participation. The methodology draws on standpoint theory, which encourages knowledge production that centres the lived experiences of marginalised groups. We were acutely aware of our own positionality as high income, Savarna researchers studying a sector dominated by Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women from low income groups. This power differential was softened partially by involving DWRU through the course of the project. Workers across both field sites were also interviewed in spaces familiar to them, most often their homes, in languages that they were comfortable with including Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil.

Feminist principles also instrumental during the data analysis, with focus on intersectionality and self-reflexivity. We highlighted the ways in which inequalities of gender, income, migration status, caste, and religion are replicated and amplified in the platform economy. In particular, we discussed the impact of the digital gender gap in access and skills on workers’ ability to find economic opportunities.

Findings

Our typology of platforms mediating domestic work finds three types of platforms – (i) marketplace, or platforms that list workers’ data on their profile, provide certain filters for automated selection of a pool of workers, and charge a fee from customers for access to workers’ contact details, (ii) digital placement agency, or platforms that provide an end-to-end placement service to customers, identify appropriate workers on the basis of selection criteria, and negotiate conditions of work on behalf of workers, and (iii) on-demand platforms, or companies that provide services or ‘gigs’ such as cleaning on an hourly basis, performed by a roster of workers who are characterised as ‘independent contractors’.

When it comes to the role played by platforms in determining employment relations, there is a wide variation within and across platform categories. There are both weak and strong models of intervention. On one end of the spectrum are marketplaces, with minimal intervention in the recruitment process, and on the other on-demand platforms, that exact control over each aspect of work. Digital platforms reconfigure the conception of intermediaries in the domestic work sector, functioning as next-generation placement agencies. All three platform types contain aspects that provide workers agency, as well as those that reinforce their positions of low-power. Platform design impacts the role platforms play in setting conditions of work, but does not determine it entirely.

(Re)shaping the terms of work
Across the three types of platforms, wages are slightly higher than or matching those of workers off platforms. Some marketplace platforms have incorporated features to nudge customers towards setting higher wages, such as enforcing minimum wage standards, or informing customers of expected wages in their locality. Conversely, on-demand platforms charge a high rate of commission from workers, despite refusing to recognise them as employees. This indicates that this is a misclassification of an employment relationship, given that workers are unable to set their own conditions or wages for work. Despite the high rates of commission and appropriation of labour by platforms, on-demand workers earn higher wages than workers on other platforms. The relatively high wage is a result of marketing on-demand cleaning as professionalised and more skilled than day-to-day cleaning. Tasks in the sector continue to be distributed along the lines of gender and caste, as has historically been the case. Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women are more likely to take up work such as cleaning and washing dishes, while men and women across castes are equally distributed in cooking work. Women dominate tasks such as elderly and childcare, as in the traditional economy. Workers in professionalised tasks such as deep cleaning that requires technical equipment and chemicals are almost entirely men.

Digital divides and workers’ agency
We find that workers are primarily onboarded onto platforms by learning about it from other workers, through onboarding camps held by platforms, or offline advertising by platforms. Such in-person onboarding techniques allows workers with no digital access or literacy to register themselves on marketplace platforms and digital placement agencies.

However, we find that low levels of education and digital literacy continue to impact platformed labour by creating a strong informational asymmetry between workers and platforms. For instance, we find that women workers from low income communities have very little information about how platforms work, causing deep distrust. Workers with digital devices and literacy (and therefore a relatively better understanding of the functionality of the platform), physical mobility and the resources to bear indirect costs that were outsourced to them were at a significant advantage in finding better-paying jobs. Workers who were seeking flexibility and were not necessarily dependent on the platform for their primary income were also better placed than those entirely dependent on platforms. Women workers tended to be disadvantaged on all these counts, limiting their agency and capacity to reap the benefits of the platform economy.

Across the three types of platforms, systems of placement and ratings add to the information asymmetry, as workers are not aware of the impact of ratings on their ability to find work or charge better wages. Ratings and filtering systems also hard-code the impact of workers’ social characteristics on their work. Workers are unable to exercise control over their data, further undermining their agency vis-a-vis platforms and employers. We identify a clear need for collective bargaining structures to protect workers’ rights, although platformed domestic workers remained distant from both domestic work unions and emergent unions of platform workers in other sectors.

Intersectionalities of formalisation
We find that inequalities of caste, class, and gender that have historically shaped the sector continue to be replicated or even amplified in the platform economy. What remains clear is that platforms in the domestic work sector adopt the logics of this sector, more than the converse. Platformisation is conflated with formalisation, and it is within this vector, from complete informality to piecemeal formalisation, that platforms operate. Labour benefits do not take the form of labour protections or welfare entitlements that are the central function of formalisation processes. Instead, the so-called benefits are intended to transform domestic workers to participate within the logics and vagaries of the market.

Policy Recommendations

Recognise and implement labour protections for domestic workers
Domestic workers have historically occupied the most vulnerable positions in the workforce, with limited legal protections. Exposed to the regulatory grey areas that platforms operate in, this doubly exposes domestic workers to precarious conditions of work. Despite an avowed move towards formalisation of domestic work, platform-mediated labour continues to retain characteristics of informal labour, even heightening some.

If pushed to do so, platform companies can be instrumental in resolving some of the implementation challenges that governments have faced in enforcing legislative protections sought to be made available to domestic workers. Platforms have databases of workers, which can be used to mandatorily register them for social security schemes offered by the government. This data can also be used for better policy making, in the absence of reliable statistics particularly on migrant workers in the informal economy.

Reduce the protective gap between employment and self-employment
The (mis)classification of “gig” work within labour law frameworks is still a matter that continues to be hotly debated within policy practitioners, legal scholarship, and civil society actors. Three positions, in particular, have been taken—treating gig workers as employees, independent contractors, or occupying a third intermediate category. More recently, there have been some legal victories guaranteeing employment protections and increasing platform companies’ accountability. However, these successes have been more visible in Global North jurisdictions.

Regardless of the resolution of these ongoing debates over employment status, labour frameworks should provide some universal protections to all categories of labour. Such protections must include universal coverage of social security, in addition to rights such as freedom of association, collective bargaining, equal remuneration and anti-discrimination. Policies geared towards achieving this objective would be significant in reducing the protective gaps between different categories of labour, and would particularly help historical and emerging occupational categories of workers such as “gig” workers and domestic workers.

Recognise the specific challenge(s) and potential of platformisation of domestic work
Platforms hold the potential of acting as effective facilitators in informal labour markets. Even when they do not replace existing recruitment pathways, they provide alternate ones. Workers were more likely to register on a platform if they were entering the domestic work labour market recently (often distress and migration driven), or had not enjoyed success with informal, word-of-mouth networks. However, platforms also heighten labour market insecurities, and create new ones. These potential risks need to be specifically recognised through appropriate frameworks, such as social security, discrimination law and data protection.

Tailor policy-making to platform models
We identify three types of platforms, each of which intervene to varying degrees in the work relationship. We recommend that digital placement agencies and marketplace platforms be registered with governments and enforce basic protections for workers such as provision of minimum wage, preventing abuse (including non-payment of wages) and trafficking. On-demand companies on the other hand, must be treated as employers, and workers be accorded employment protections including social security.

In addition to rights-based policy actions, legal-regulatory mechanisms geared towards mitigating the precariousness of platform-based work are required. This can take the shape of clarifying and expanding existing legal-regulatory formulations, or preparing new ones. Such policy making should factor in the power and information asymmetry between domestic workers (and gig workers, generally) and platforms.

Further, in the absence of health or retirement benefits, risks and indirect costs of operations are shifted from employers to workers. For instance, workers provide capital in the form of tools or equipment, support the fluctuation of business and income, and can be ‘deactivated’ from an application as a result of poor ratings or periods of inactivity. Any regulation aiming to extend employee status should mandate platforms to support such indirect costs.

Related Publications

1. Research notes with reflections from union members.
2. The event report from a stakeholder consultation with workers, unions, companies and government representatives.
3. A reflection note on the participatory approach taken by the project.
4. A paper with a comparative analysis of the policy landscape on domestic work in the platform economy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-perspectives-from-domestic-and-care-work-in-india

Platformisation of Domestic Work in India: Report from a Multistakeholder Consultation

tasneem — 2020-02-17T09:46:52Z

On November 16, 2019, The Centre for Internet and Society invited officials from the Department of Labour (Government of Karnataka), members of domestic worker unions, domestic workers, company representatives, and civil society researchers at the Student Christian Mission of India House to discuss preliminary findings of an ongoing research project and facilitate a multistakeholder consultation to understand the contemporaneous platformisation of domestic work in India. Please find here a report from this consultation authored by Tasneem Mewa.

Report from the consultation: Download (PDF)

Agenda and details of the consultation: URL

Introduction

This collaborative project is being led by the the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) together with Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU) in Bangalore. The research team comprises of Geeta Menon, Parijatha G.P., Sumathi, Radha K., and Zennathunnisa from DWRU, and Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon from CIS. Through a collective research process, this research team has explored the proliferation of digital platforms as a key intermediary in the domestic work sector, and in supporting or challenging deeply rooted structural inequities. For more information on the research project, see the project announcement published on the CIS website [1]. This work forms part of the Association for Progressive Communications’ Feminist Internet Research Network project, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.

The multistakeholder consultation was structured in two segments: a) a presentation outlining initial observations and analysis, and b) a semi-moderated open discussion. Together, these sessions aimed to initiate conversations pertaining to the role of digital platforms, the legal classification of domestic and gig workers, and devising regulatory solutions to improve conditions of work. Preliminary findings were based on qualitative in-depth interviews with workers, platform companies, unions, skilling agencies, and labour officials in both Bengaluru and New Delhi. Feminist approaches were employed in conducting these interviews, and participatory, consensual, reflexive and collaborative research was prioritised.

Situating the lived realities of domestic workers, the event sought to centre the voice of domestic workers in the consultation around the future of their work. The event had attendance from multilingual attendees. The original presentation was made in English, and Geeta Menon translated the presentation and the discussion that followed in Kannada [2].

Footnotes

[1] Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019, October 1). Digital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project Announcement. Retrieved from https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement

[2] Rathi, A. (2019, November 16). Domestic Work in the 'Gig Economy'. Retrieved from https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116; Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019). Domestic workers in the ‘gig’ economy [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation

Platforming precarity: Data narratives of workers sustaining urban platform services

2024-10-15T02:42:26Z

CIS conducted quantitative surveys with over 800 workers employed in the app-based taxi and delivery sectors across 4 cities in India as part of the ‘Labour Futures’ project supported by the Internet Society Foundation. The surveys covered key employment indicators, including earnings and working hours, work-related cost burdens, income and social security, and platform policies and management. Findings from these surveys are presented as data visualisation briefs centring workers’ everyday experiences. These data briefs form a foundational evidence base for policy and action around labour rights, social protection, and urban inclusion in platform work.

It has been over a decade since app-based delivery and taxi sectors began operations in India, and have since expanded to several metropolitan and smaller cities. These sectors together account for the largest proportion of the platform workforce in India. Workers’ organising and collective action have long revealed extractive labour practices in the platform economy. Their demands call for the recognition of their labour rights by policymakers and platforms, an end to exploitative working conditions, and the introduction of effective policy that protects their rights and wellbeing.

In 2021-22, the labour research vertical at the Centre for Internet and Society conducted quantitative surveys with over 800 workers in the app-based taxi services and app-based delivery services sectors. Spanning four cities (Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Guwahati, Lucknow), the surveys gathered comprehensive data on the conditions of work in the platform economy in these cities, within its two dominant sectors.

The survey covered key labour indicators—(i) the conditions of work for workers, including recruitment, wages, incentive structures, and work-related cost burdens (ii) workforce management, including hours spent working for the platform, surveillance and control measures, and (iii) workers’ coverage under income security, social security and social protections, including provident funds, health and accident insurance, and pensions.

Key Findings

The generation of city-level data aimed to support policymaking and advocacy towards achieving just outcomes for workers in the rapidly platformising Indian economy. These survey findings speak to i) top-down approaches of regulatory, legislative, and judicial action through evidence-building, and ii) bottom-up approaches of mobilisation and advocacy campaigns of workers’ collectives.

The city-wise data briefs highlight region-specific differences and similarities shaped by histories and newer developments of labour platforms operating in the urban economy. Across the four survey cities, the data briefs reveal the ways in which precarity materialised in platform work. Workers grappled with numerous socioeconomic vulnerabilities that influenced their entry and continued employment in platform work. They faced low-wage outcomes, worsened by a reduction in bonuses, and high operational work-related expenses. Earnings remained low and uncertain despite workers putting in immensely long hours working for platforms. Worsening these burdens was widespread income insecurity that workers faced in both app-based taxi and delivery sectors.

Mapping delivery and taxi platform services across cities

The taxi services sector in all cities was dominated by two large platforms—Uber and Ola Cabs. These platforms had established a highly concentrated labour market for taxi workers. The exception to this was the taxi platform labour market in Guwahati, where the local platform, PeIndia, employed 35% of taxi workers in the city.

The delivery services sector in all cities had a high concentration of pan-India platforms. Food delivery services were concentrated by Swiggy and Zomato across cities. E-commerce delivery services had a diversity of platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, E-kart Logistics, and Shadowfax, as well as grocery delivery services like Big Basket, Dunzo, and Jio Mart.

Economic necessity and a lack of alternative employment pushing workers into precarious platform work

The pathway to precarious platform work was distress-driven, borne out of low wages in previous salaried work, or a lack of alternative employment. A large proportion of workers were previously engaged in salaried employment, who then shifted to platform work, marking increased informality and precarity in their employment status. In Mumbai, over 64% of workers were in salaried employment previously, and this also the case for over 50% of workers in Guwahati, and over 42% of workers in Delhi-NCR. In Lucknow and Delhi-NCR, pandemic-driven unemployment was a key driver for a staggering proportion of workers who joined platform work as a distress employment source. Over 30% of workers in Lucknow and Delhi-NCR were previously unemployed.

These socioeconomic vulnerabilities influenced workers entry and continued employment in platform work. Key factors for workers entering were the lack of alternative employment sources and the hope for better pay and potential job flexibility. The lack of alternative jobs was a major push into platform work for workers in Delhi-NCR and Lucknow—over 60% of workers in Delhi-NCR and over 50% of workers in Lucknow. At least 40% of workers across cities mentioned the expectation of better pay as a major reason to start platform work, while potential job flexibility was also a key reason for workers in Mumbai and Guwahati. However, as the findings below show, workers’ expectations were unmet.

Externalised joining, statutory, and operational costs

High joining, statutory, and operational costs were offloaded onto workers to access and continue platform work. This was especially the case for taxi workers who owned their vehicles, and had to incur vehicle investment costs and downpayment, as well as statutory costs that included operating permits, road tax, vehicle insurance, and fitness fee. Across all cities, average monthly expenses for taxi workers were above INR 30,000. For delivery workers, average monthly expenses mostly comprised fuel costs, and were around INR 5,500 in Guwahati and Lucknow, and around INR 6,700 in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. These high externalised costs reveal the economic vulnerabilities inherent within platform work.

Compounding these costs, platforms in the taxi services sectors also charged commissions unevenly and in varying fee structures—ranging from 20% to 30% of the fare in Mumbai and Lucknow, and going as high as 35% in Delhi-NCR and Guwahati. It is important to note that high commissions persist despite the mandate under the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020 to cap commissions and other platform charges at 20% of the fare.

Platforms’ offloading of costs to workers have resulted in workers’ having to rely on informal leasing, debt, and subcontracting arrangements. These arrangements were seen across all cities, where workers in the city were either renting the vehicle they were driving, paying a commission to a vehicle owner, paying off vehicle EMIs on someone else’s behalf, or were paid a fixed salary by a vehicle owner. Notably, in Lucknow, around 35% of taxi workers were engaged under these informal arrangements.

Insufficient incomes and economic vulnerabilities

Workers' experiences, across cities, highlight how a majority contended with low-wage outcomes. Earnings remained low and uncertain for workers despite the fact that they were putting in long work hours. Several factors contributed to this insufficiency and uncertainty in workers’ earnings: stringent platform requirements around high acceptance rates and ratings, which were important determinants, decreased flexibility, and high offloaded work-related expenses.

Across cities, earnings for delivery workers were considerably lower than those for taxi workers. When earnings were adjusted for standard weekly work hours (48 hours/week), over 50% of delivery workers in Mumbai, Guwahati, and Lucknow were earning less than the corresponding state-wise minimum wages. Further, over 75% of delivery workers in these cities were earning below estimated state-wise living wages. Platform work was also insufficient in meeting essential living needs for taxi workers in Mumbai, Guwahati, and Lucknow. Around 30% of taxi workers (23% in Guwahati) were earning less than minimum wages, and around 50% (80% in Mumbai) were earning less than estimated living wages. Earnings for both delivery and taxi workers in Delhi-NCR were substantially lower than minimum wage and living wage standards. 69% of workers in the taxi services sector and 87% of workers in the delivery services sector earned less than the minimum wage in Delhi. Moreover, 92% of workers in the taxi sector and 97% of workers in the delivery sector earned lower than the estimated living wage.

These insufficient incomes were particularly damaging to workers’ lives and livelihoods, considering their high dependence on income from platform work. An overwhelming proportion of workers (over 94% across all cities) were engaged in platform work as their main source of income, as opposed to part-time employment. They also faced significant economic burdens such as being sole earners in their household, having multiple financial dependents, having financial commitments to provide remittances back home, and so on. Worsening these burdens was widespread income insecurity that workers faced across all cities—for over 43% of workers (up to 65% in Guwahati), earnings from platform work were insufficient for covering basic household expenses.

Workplace risks and ineffective redressal mechanisms

Workers in both sectors were working immensely long hours in order to try and make adequate earnings while working for platforms, working several hours above standard weekly work hours (48 hours/week) typically prescribed by occupational health standards. Across all cities, delivery workers spent a median of over 60 weekly hours working for platforms, and taxi workers spent a median of around 84 weekly hours.

Alongside the adverse health impacts of long work hours, workers faced grievous workplace risks, including risks of physical assault, theft, poor road safety, and harsh weather conditions. Around 75% of delivery and taxi workers faced these issues in Mumbai and Lucknow. An even greater proportion of workers were exposed to these risks in Delhi-NCR (84%) and Guwahati (90%).

Despite several workplace risks, platforms remained unaccountable for their failure to guarantee safe working conditions. Across all cities, less than 10% of workers found that their platform took steps to improve working conditions. Workers’ overall experience with platform grievance redressal mechanisms was mixed. For instance, in Lucknow, only around 25% of workers who raised grievances did not receive a resolution. In contrast, 50% of taxi workers in Delhi-NCR did not receive a resolution, as was the case for 76% of taxi workers in Mumbai. Workers have limited recourse when their grievances go unanswered. Platforms, however, wield significant control over terms of work, making it difficult for workers to challenge unfair decisions.

Low coverage and accessibility of social protection mechanisms

Social security covered by platforms typically included health insurance and accident insurance. Workers faced significant gaps in insurance coverage, and these gaps were particularly glaring in the taxi services sector. Across cities, health and accident insurance coverage for taxi workers was below 10% (an exception was 11% of workers covered by accident insurance in Delhi-NCR). It is important to note that this low coverage exists despite the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020 mandating provision of health insurance and term insurance from platforms.

Delivery workers had a relatively higher percentage of insurance coverage from platforms, although coverage varied across cities. Health insurance coverage was low for delivery workers in Delhi-NCR (21%) and Guwahati (14%), but higher for workers in Lucknow (34%) and Mumbai (44%). In the case of accident insurance, insurance was covered by platforms for over 40% of delivery workers in Delhi-NCR and Lucknow, while a greater proportion of workers were covered in Mumbai (63%) and Guwahati (72%). Even though delivery workers were covered by platform-provisioned insurance, claiming benefits was an unreliable and time-consuming process. Workers who attempted to access benefits faced several obstacles, including poor awareness of available schemes, inadequate coverage, and little to no platform support in navigating complex claims procedures.

The inadequacy of platform-provisioned insurance was exacerbated by the exclusion of workers from government social protection mechanisms. In Delhi-NCR, Guwahati, and Lucknow, over 35% of workers in both sectors were left outside of social protection from governments. In Mumbai, over 66% of workers were excluded.

Contributors

Conceptualisation + planning: Aayush Rathi, Abhishek Sekharan, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V M, Chiara Furtado, and Nishkala Sekhar

Writing: Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V M, Chiara Furtado, and Nishkala Sekhar

Data analysis: Abhishek Sekharan, Chetna V M, and Nishkala Sekhar

Data visualisation: Sriharsha Devulapalli

Design + design direction: Annushka Jaliwala and Yatharth

Review: Aayush Rathi and Abhineet Nayyar

Survey design + planning: Abhishek Sekharan and Ambika Tandon

Survey implementation: Abhishek Kumar

Research advice: Nora Gobel and Uma Rani Amara

We are deeply grateful to the workers who participated in the surveys for generously sharing their time, experiences, and insights with us.

This work was supported by the Internet Society Foundation, as part of the “Labour Futures” project at the Centre for Internet and Society.

This work is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)

To know more about this work, please write to us at chiara@cis-india.org

Explore more of CIS’ research on labour and digitalisation at platformwork.in

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/platforming-precarity-data-narratives-workers

Millions of Indians move from cash to digital payments. But some ask whether it’s safe

praskrishna — 2017-01-16T02:52:33Z

Minutes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began an ambitious new mobile-phone-payment application in December, several clones of the app popped up at Android smartphone stores.

The article by Rama Lakshmi was published by Washington Post on 14 January 2017, Sunil Abraham was quoted. Annie Gowen contributed to this report.

In the first few days, users were flooded with spam requests for money.

The Bhim app sponsored by the government was rushed out after Modi’s abrupt withdrawal of large currency bills two months ago. More than 10 million people downloaded it in just 10 days, but in a country where awareness and regulation of privacy, data protection and digital security are low, the number of cyberattacks is rising.

“We are rushing toward launching and using these plethora of financial tech apps without the exhaustive security testing and education that is needed,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society. “We are operating in a bit of a regulatory vacuum.”

Modi’s ambitious move to swap old bills for new was intended to fight the hoarding of illicit cash reserves. But it was derailed by shoddy implementation, left citizens in Asia’s third-largest economy without cash for weeks, slowed manufacturing and sent workers home, and is now likely to significantly affect the country’s economic growth this year, economists say. It was acutely painful for a country where 80 percent of transactions were conducted with cash.

Modi quickly responded by turning the adversity into a call for Indians to kick their overwhelming dependence on cash and opt for digital payments overnight. The Bhim app is just one of many available. But in this leap, experts say, security concerns are being overlooked.

The new payment apps and e-wallet companies are governed by India’s outdated information technology law of 2008 and central bank guidelines.

“India urgently needs a new digital payment law that regulates all these mobile payment apps that have sprung up overnight,” said Pavan Duggal, a cyber-law expert. “We are right now in a completely uncharted and unsupervised territory legally. The norms for wallet companies are undefined. If I lose my money due to a fraud, I can go round and round in circles with no remedy.”

The central bank recently issued guidelines asking payment banks to carry out security audits, but Duggal said “there is no penalty or punishment for noncompliance.”

The problem is compounded by the fact that education about security risks online is abysmally sparse, especially in India’s small towns and villages. Indians are complacent about cyber risks in their online behavior, according to the Norton Cyber Security Insights Report. India does not have a privacy law.

India reported more than 39,000 incidents of cyberattacks in the first nine months of 2016, according to the government, including phishing, scanning and probing, website intrusions, defacements, virus and malicious code, and denial-of-service attacks.

“The Pentagon got hacked, right? You haven’t closed down the Pentagon as yet,” said Piyush Goyal, a minister. “These things will happen, and we have to be one step ahead of the hackers and the so-called security breaches and continuously improving and improvising as they do in America or other developed economies.”

In October, top banks had to fix the security codes of about 3.2 million debit cards in one of the biggest data breaches in India. Some users complained that their cards had been used in China.

Last month, hackers attacked Twitter and email accounts of prominent politicians and journalists and defaced the website of the National Security Guard, an elite commando force.

“The focus of global hackers has shifted to India. The cyber risk is a direct fallout of the growth in the number of digital users,” said Saket Modi, the chief executive of Lucideus Tech, the firm that conducted the security audit of the government’s Bhim app.

Since the cash crunch began, the largest private e-wallet company, Paytm, has experienced a 400 percent jump in new downloads.

But only 342 million people access the Internet on their mobile phones. The government has introduced dial-in service for those who have basic cellphones to make digital payments.

The government is airing radio jingles telling citizens not to share their personal identification numbers and has a toll-free helpline to teach people how to make online payments.

“Officials understand how security worries can be a big dampener in their campaign to get people to go digital,” said Vinayak Godse, senior director at the Data Security Council of India, an industry body that advises the government.

But in a trade-off between convenience and security, the central bank recently waived the mandatory two-factor authentication for transactions less than $30 online.

Some cybersecurity experts say that Indians are not ready for this step.

The police recently arrested a gang in the eastern state of Jharkhand; operators were calling people posing as bank executives and tricking them into sharing their card details. They used the cards to do online shopping and transferred money into their e-wallet accounts.

“People are gullible and can be threatened or lured to part with their bank details easily. We need as many safeguards as we can have,” said Surendra Kumar, a senior police officer in New Delhi who busted the gang.

But the biggest problem people face is that police in one state get very little cooperation from those in another state in digital-crime complaints, said Rakshit Tandon, a cybersecurity expert who trains police, military members and school students.

“Only in big-ticket frauds will police departments from different states coordinate their investigations,” Tandon said. “If a person loses a relatively smaller amount digitally, the case won’t go far. Even though that amount may mean a lot in that person’s life.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/washington-post-january-14-2017-rama-lakshmi-millions-of-indians-move-from-cash-to-digital-payments

MediaNama - #NAMAprivacy: The Future of User Data (Delhi, Sep 6)

sumandro — 2017-09-05T10:22:12Z

MediaNama is hosting a full day conference on "the future of user data in India", on the 6th of September 2017, which is particularly significant given the recent Supreme Court ruling on the fundamental right to privacy, and two government consultations: one at the TRAI, and another at MEITY. This discussion is supported by Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, will participate as a speaker in the session titled "regulating storage, sharing and transfer of data."

Details

Time: September 6th 2017, 9 am to 4:30 pm

Venue: Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (please enter from Gate #3)

Agenda: https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-agenda-namaprivacy-future-of-user-data/

Announced Speakers

Chinmayi Arun, Centre for Communication Governance at NLU Delhi
Malavika Raghavan, IFMR Finance Foundation
Renuka Sane, NIPFP
Smitha Krishna Prasad, Centre for Communication Governance at NLU Delhi
Ananth Padmanabhan, Carnegie India
Avinash Ramachandra, Amazon
Hitesh Oberoi, Naukri
Jochai Ben-Avie, Mozilla
Mrinal Sinha, Mobikwik
Murari Sreedharan, Bankbazaar
Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Centre for Internet and Society

Facilitators

Saikat Datta, Asia Times Online
Shashidar KJ, MediaNama
Nikhil Pahwa, MediaNama

Attendees

We have confirmed 140+ attendees from: Adobe, Amber Health, Amazon, APCO Worldwide, Bank Bazaar, Bloomberg-Quint, Blume Ventures, Broadband India Forum, Business Standard, BuzzFeed News, CCOAI, CEIP, Change Alliance, Chase India, CIS, CNN News18, DEF, Deloitte, DNA, DSCI, E2E Networks, British High Commission, Eurus Network Services, FICCI, Firefly Networks, Flipkart, Forrester Research, Fortumo, DoT, MEITY, IAMAI, IBM, ICRIER, IFMR Finance Foundation, IIMC, Indian Law Institute, Indic Project, Info Edge, ISPAI, IT for Change, ITU-APT, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jindal Global Law School, Mimir Technologies, Mozilla, Newslaundry, NIPFP, Nishith Desai Associates, NIXI, NLU-Delhi, ORF, Paytm, PLR Chambers, PRS Legislative Research, Publicis Groupe, Quartz India, Reliance Jio, Reuters, Saikrishna & Associates, Scroll.in, SFLC.in, Spectranet, The Economics Times, The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Wire, Times Internet, Twitter, and more.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-namaprivacy-the-future-of-user-data-delhi-sep-6

Labour futures: Intersectional responses to southern digital platform economies

Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon — 2021-01-27T08:43:36Z

It is our great pleasure to announce that we are undertaking a two-year research project to comprehensively analyse dominant and emerging sectors in India’s platform economies. The project is funded by a research grant of USD 200,000 from the Internet Society Foundation.

The works emerging from this project will directly inform the ongoing challenges that various stakeholders are encountering in negotiating policy-making for the platform economy. It will attempt to address these challenges by bringing forth a southern and worker-first understanding of the platform economy. In the immediate term, the project will speak to labour law "reforms" underway in India. In the long term, it will engage with historical and forthcoming policy discourse regionally and in India around regulation of e-commerce, trade, competition, and digital platforms.

Provocations

Few recent developments in recent times have attracted as much public and scholarly and policy attention as the platform economy (and it’s various terminologies such as sharing/gig/on-demand economy). While it is widely acknowledged that the platform economy is rapidly growing, very little is known about its size other than monetary estimates of market size. Reliable quantitative data on even some of the fundamental aspects of the platform economy has been unavailable. Platform companies have been notoriously averse to publishing open datasets, and the dispersed nature of the platforms and their workforces has made data collection particularly challenging. Innovative methodologies of data collection are urgent.

Another reason for the increasing attention has been the increasing embeddedness of platforms in urban infrastructures, and their central role in urban life. Several camps building approaches to and analyses of the platform economy have already been set-up across and within disciplines. Economists have offered a narrative of platform work that emphasises efficiency and opportunity, with some discussion of disruption of employment relations. Sociological work has focused on two main topics to explain outcomes for platform work—precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labour, and technological control via algorithms. Both of these suggest exploitative experiences of platform labour.

Despite a global proliferation of digital platforms and their integration within numerous urban operations, much of the examination around these tools has tended to focus on their implementation within northern cities. Qualitative work in southern contexts is growing, and has been rich, but has often used similar analytical lenses as work in the North. This is showcased by the outsized attention paid in scholarship to models of labour platformisation referred to with the monikers ‘Uberisation’ and ‘Uber for X’, which limit the imagination of the platform economy to on-demand work. This research team’s work of platformisation in the domestic work sector in India has shown how such work, while crucial, essentialises a male and techno-centric formulation of the experiences of platform labour. There is an urgent need for a southern-led analytic approach to platform economies, which emphasises labour force intersectionalities, informalities in southern contexts, connections to conventional labour markets economics and regulation, and institutional voids in southern economies.

Hypothesis and research questions

The central hypothesis for this research project is that the generation of systematic macro-level data and robust regulatory documentation will lead to effective policy-making and advocacy. This can achieve secure and gainful labour market outcomes for workers in rapidly digitising southern economies. Achieving these outcomes will require multi-pronged strategies that can create pathways for structural changes. Such strategies include top-down approaches which will support regulatory and legislative policies, and judicial action through evidence-building. We will also focus on the embedding of bottom-up approaches in regulatory processes such as through workers’ organisation and resistance.

The broad research questions for this project are:

What are the determinants and characteristics, historical and emergent, of digital platform entities’ recruitment, workforce management and economic value creation strategies?
What institutional roles, vis-à-vis civil society, markets and the state, are digital platform entities in the global south(s) occupying and seeking to occupy?
What are (a) regulatory, (b) corporate policy and (c) individual/collective labour responses that can generate equitable and gainful outcomes for workers in the digital platform economies?

Research team

The research project will be led by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, along with Amber Sinha. Shayna Robinson, from the Internet Society Foundation, will be supporting our endeavours.

Work with us

The success of this project will be contingent on inter/trans-disciplinary approaches to generate sustainable and gainful work outcomes for the bodies labouring in the platform economies. In addition to stakeholder groups directly engaged in the platform economies, we plan to work with a diverse set of individuals and groups, including public interest technologists, economists, practitioners, labour and technology historians, and designers.

If you are interested in contributing to this project and collaborating on similar agendas, do reach out to either Aayush Rathi (aayush@cis-india.org) or Ambika Tandon (ambika@cis-india.org).

Do keep an eye out on CIS’s website and social media handles for listings of specific work opportunities on this and other projects. One such opportunity is here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies

Karnataka’s uniform fare policy—Do attempts at parity consider the impact on workers?

Chiara Furtado and Nishkala Sekhar — 2024-07-08T03:53:37Z

Chiara Furtado and Nishkala Sekhar write in The News Minute about the Karnataka transport department’s February 2024 fare policy aiming for parity between aggregator (app-based) and other taxis. While policy interventions towards parity is a welcome step, the article highlights how inequalities and systemic barriers to parity remain for workers.

Calling for a worker justice lens to policy imaginations of parity

The Karnataka transport department’s February 2024 policy on uniform fares for aggregator (app-based) taxis and all other taxis is an encouraging step towards addressing disparities created by market-dominant platforms such as Ola Cabs and Uber. In a first, the policy attempts to bring parity between the app-based and offline taxi sectors by setting the same base and per kilometre fares for both categories. It also looks at a novel aspect of regulating app-based platforms through the prohibition of surge pricing.

This article views the policy against workers’ experiences with platforms’ management and income distribution practices. Policies such as these may well be one of many attempts to draw parity between aggregator platforms and other offline taxi firms. Yet, we find that workers have barely featured in these conversations of transport policy, whether on parity or otherwise.

The fare policy has been welcomed by some workers’ organisations as fulfilling a key demand for uniformity. However, it still remains silent on actual systemic issues and impacts for workers on platforms. This is a pressing issue in light of how workers face the worst impacts of platform practices that extract value and create disparities. CIS’ surveys showed that workers worked over 84 hours a week whilst only earning a median of Rs 5,000. For over half of them, these earnings were not sufficient to cover even basic household expenses. Further reflecting their vulnerability, 28% of workers had access to workplace accident insurance, and an even lower 6% had access to health insurance, while 57% depended on the government for benefits like food rations.

Operational and algorithmic accountability within a policy agenda on labour and data rights are inextricably linked to curbing disparities driven by dominant aggregator platforms. There is a need therefore to ensure that uniform fare policies are not limited only to customers, but also consider potential impacts on workers.

Contributors

Authors: Chiara Furtado and Nishkala Sekhar

Research data: Centre for Internet and Society

Reviewers: Aayush Rathi and Chetna V. M.

Editors: The News Minute

Images: The News Minute

Publisher: The News Minute

Click to read the full essay

The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/karnataka2019s-uniform-fare-policy2014do-attempts-at-parity-consider-the-impact-on-workers

Inputs to the Report on the Non-Personal Data Governance Framework

sumandro — 2020-12-30T09:40:52Z

This submission presents a response by researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) to the draft Report on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework prepared by the Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan. The inputs are authored by Aayush Rathi, Aman Nair, Ambika Tandon, Pallavi Bedi, Sapni Krishna, and Shweta Mohandas (in alphabetical order), and reviewed by Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Text of submitted inputs: Read (PDF)

Report by the Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework: Read (PDF)

Inputs

Clause 3.7 (v): The role of the Indian government in the operation of data markets

While highlighting the potential for India to be one of the top consumer and data markets of the world, it also sheds light on the concern about the possibility of data monopolies. The clause envisions the role of the Indian government as a regulator and a catalyst for domestic data markets.

In doing so, the clause does not acknowledge that the proactive and dominant roles of the Indian government in generation and reuse of data, based on the existing data collection practices, as well as the provisions that have been given, as under the compulsory sharing provisions in the Report, and would continue to be given by the Personal Data Protection Bill. In reality, the Indian government’s role is not just of a catalyst but also of a key player, potentially with monopolistic market power, in the domestic data market, especially due to the ongoing data marketplace initiatives as detailed in published policy and vision documents. [1]

Clause 3.8 (iv): Introducing collective privacy

The introduction of collective privacy has initiated an overdue discussion at the policy level to arrive at privacy formulations that account for limitations in the contemporary dominant social, legal and ethical paradigms of privacy premised on individual interests and personal harm. The notion of collective privacy has garnered contemporary attention with the rise of data processing technologies and business models that thrive on the collection and processing of aggregate information.

While the Report acknowledges that collective privacy is an evolving concept, it doesn’t attempt to define either collective or what privacy could entail in the context of a collective. The postulation of collective privacy as a legally binding right is bereft with challenges in both domestic and international legal frameworks. [2]

Central to these challenges is the representation of the group of the entity. While the Report illustrates harms that may be incurred by certain collectives that collective privacy could protect against, these illustrated collectives are already recognised in law as rights-holding groups (society members, for example), and/or share pre-determined attributes (sexual orientation, for example).

The Report does not acknowledge that the very technological processes that may have rendered the articulation of collective privacy necessary, also are intended to create ad-hoc and newer sets of individuals or groups with shared attributes. [3] In doing so, the Report furthers an ontology of groups having intuitive, predetermined attributes that exist naturally, or in law, whereas the intervention of data collection and processing technologies can determine shared group attributes afresh. Moreover, the Report also ignores that predetermined attributes are static, and in doing so, ignores a vast existing literature speaking to fluidity of identities and the intersectionality of identities that individuals in groups occupy. [4] We fully appreciate the challenges these pose in the determination of the legal contours of collective privacy. Much of the Report’s recommendations are premised on the idea of a predetermined collective, rendering more granular exploration of these ideas urgent.

Further, the Report also puts forth a limited conception of privacy as a safeguard against data-related harms that may be caused to collectives. In doing so, it dilutes the conceptualisation of individual privacy as articulated in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. vs Union Of India And Ors. Notwithstanding this dilution, the illustrations also only indicate harms that may be caused by private actors. Any further recommendations should envision the harms that may also be caused by public data-driven processes, such as those incubated within the state machinery.

Clause 4.1 (iii) and Recommendation 1: Defining Non-Personal Data

The Report proposes the definition of non-personal data to include (i) data that was never related to an identified or identifiable natural person, and (ii) aggregated, anonymised personal data such that individual events are “no longer identifiable”. In doing so, they have attempted to extend protections to categories of data that fall outside the ambit of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (hereafter “PDP Bill”). The Report is cognizant of the fallible nature of anonymization techniques but fails to indicate how these may be addressed. The test of anonymization in regarding data as non-personal data requires further clarification. Anonymization, in and of itself, is an ambiguous standard. Scholarship has indicated that anonymised data may never be completely anonymous. [5] Despite this, the PDP Bill proposes a high threshold of zero-risk of anonymization in relation to personal data, to mean “such irreversible process of transforming or converting personal data to a form in which a data principal cannot be identified”. From a plain reading, it appears that the Report proposes a lower threshold of the anonymization requirements governing non-personal data. It is unclear how non-personal data would then be different from inferred data as described within the definition of personal data under the PDP Bill. This adds regulatory uncertainty making it imperative for the Committee to articulate bright-line, risk-based principles and rules for the test of anonymization. Such rules should also indicate the factors that ought to be taken into account to determine whether anonymization has occurred and the timescale of reference for anonymization outcomes. [6]

The recommendation also states that the data principal should "also provide consent for anonymisation and usage of this anonymized data while providing consent for collection and usage of his/her personal data". However the framing of this recommendation fails to mention the responsibility of the data fiduciary to provide notice to the data principal about the usage of the anonymized data while seeking the data principal’s consent for anonymization. The notice provided to the data principal should provide clear indication that consent of the data principal is based on their knowledge of the use of the anonymized data.

Clause 4.8 (i), (ii): Function of data custodians

The Report does not make it clear who may perform the role of data custodians. The use of data fiduciary indicates the potential import of the definition of ‘data fiduciary’ as specified under Clause 3.13 of the PDP Bill. However, this needs to be further clarified.

Clause 4.8 (iii): Data custodians’ “duty of care”

As is outlined in the following section on data trustees, it can be difficult for a singular entity to maintain a duty of care and undertake actions with the best interest of a community when that community consists of sub-communities that may be marginalised. Further, ‘duty of care’, ‘best interest’, and ‘absence of harm’ are not sufficient standards for data processing by data custodians. Recommendations to the effect of obligating data custodians to uphold the rights of data principals, including economic and fundamental rights need to be incorporated in the framework.

Clause 4.9: Data trustees

The committee’s suggestion that the “most appropriate representative body” should be the data trustee—that often being either the corresponding government entity or community body— is reasonable at face value. However, in the absence of any clear principles defining what constitutes “most appropriate” there are a number of potential issues that can appear:

Lack of means for selecting a data trustee: The report makes note of the fact that both private and public entities can be selected to be data trustees but offers no principles on how these data trustees can be selected, i.e. whether they are to be directly selected by the members of a community, and if so how. Any selection criteria or process prescribed has to keep in mind the following point regarding the potential lack of representation for marginalised communities that could arise from a direct selection of a data trustee by a group of people.

Issues of having a single data trustee for large scale communities and when dealing with marginalised communities: The report assumes that in instances wherein a community is spread across a geographic region, or consists of multiple sub-communities, then the data trustee will be the closest shared government authority (for example, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India being the data trustee for data regarding diabetes among Indian citizens).

This idea of a singular data trustee assumes that the ‘best interests’ of a community are uniform across that community. This can prove problematic especially when dealing with data obtained from marginalised communities that forms a part of a wider dataset. It is entirely possible to imagine that a smaller disenfranchised community may have interests that are not aligned with the general majority. In such a situation the Report is unclear as to whether the data trustee would have to ensure that the best interests of all groups are maintained, or would they be responsible for ensuring the best interests of the largest number of people within that community. There are power differentials between citizens, government agencies, and other entities described by the Report. This places citizens at risk of abuse of power by government entities in their role as trustees, who are effectively being empowered through this policy framework as opposed to a representative mechanism. It is recommended that data trustees be appointed by relevant communities through clear and representative mechanisms. Additionally, any individual should be able to file complaints regarding the discharge of community trust by data trustees. This is necessary as any subsequent rights vested in the community can only be exercised through the data trustee, and become unenforceable in the lack of an appropriate data trustee.

Any legislation that arises on the basis of this report will therefore have to not only provide a means for selecting the data trustee, but also safeguards for ensuring that data collected from marginalised communities are used keeping in mind their specific best interests—with these best interests being informed through consultation with that community.

Clause 4.10 (iii): Data trusts

Section 4.10 (iii) notes that data custodians may voluntarily share data in these data trusts. However it is unclear if such sharing must be done with the express consent of the relevant data trustee.

Clause 4.10 (iv): Mandatory sharing and competition

The fundamental premise of a mandatory data sharing regime seems increasingly distant from its practical impacts. The EU which earlier championed the cause now seems reluctant to further it on the face of studies which skews towards counteractive impacts of such steps. Such steps could apply to huge volumes of first-party data companies collect on their own assets, products and services, even though such data are among the least likely to create barriers to entry or contribute to abuses of dominant positions. [7] This is hence likely to bring in more chilling effect on innovation and investment than a pro-competition environment. The velocity of big data also adds to the futility of such data sharing mandates. [8] It is recommended that a sectoral analysis of this mandate be undertaken instead of an overarching stipulation.

The Report suggests extensive data sharing without addressing the extent of obligation on the private players to submit to these requests and process them. The availability of meta-data about the data collected may be made easily accessible under mandates of transparency. However, the access to the detailed underlying data will be difficult in most cases due to the current structure of entities functioning in cyberspace, evidenced by the lack of compliance to such mandates by Courts of Law in the EU. Such a system can easily eliminate the comparative advantage of smaller players, helping larger players with more money at their disposal enabling their growth and throttling the smaller players. It could have serious implications on data quality and integrity through the sharing of erroneous data. Access to superior quality digital services in India may also have to be compromised. If this regime is furthered without amends to address these concerns, it might end up counter productive.

Clause 5.1 (iv): Grievance redressal against state’s role

This clause acknowledges the vast potential for government authorities and other bodies to abuse their power as data trustee. In addition, it should describe the setting up of impartial and accessible mechanisms for citizens to complain against such abuse of power and appropriate penalties, including the removal of the data trustee.

Chapter 7, Recommendation 5: Purpose of data-sharing

Recommendation 5 leaves scope for “national security” as a sovereign purpose for data sharing. This continues to be in line with the trend of having an overarching national security clause, as in the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. There could be provisions made to enable access to data for sovereign purposes without such broad definition, replacing it based on constitutional terms which will limit it to the confines laid down in the Constitution. This will effectively curb any misuse of the provision and strongly embed the proposed regulation of non-personal data on constitutional ethos. This can also prevent future conflicts with the fundamental rights.

Platform companies have leveraged their position in society to take on an ever-greater number of quasi-public functions, exercising new forms of unaccountable, transnational authority. It is not difficult to imagine that this trend can continue to non-platform companies, or even taken forward by these very entities which also have access to a large chunk of non-personal data. A strict division between sovereign purposes and core public interest purposes seems difficult. However, it is imperative to have a clearer definition of core public interest purposes and sovereign purposes. The broad based definition may facilitate reduced accountability. Separating government actions from sovereign purposes could bring forth the power imbalance between the State and its people, while in the case of the non-governmental entities, it will facilitate encroachment of government functions by private players. Both these cases may not consider the best interest of the data generators, or the people at large.

Clause 7.1 (i): Data needs of law enforcement

Clause 7.1 (i) allows for acquisition of data governed by this framework for crime mapping, devising anticipation and preventive measures, and for investigations and law enforcement. While this may be necessary to be granted to law enforcement in certain cases, this should happen only with an express permission of a court of law. Blanket executive access allows higher possibility of misuse by the people involved in law enforcement.

Clause 7.2 (iv): Use of health data as a pilot

The clause suggests the use of health sector data as a pilot use-case. This is highly undesirable due to the inherent nature of high sensitivity of the larger part of data related to the health sector. The high vulnerability of such data to harm the data principals should act as a deterrent in using this as the pilot use-case. Given the mass availability of data related to the health sector due to the pandemic, it creates further points of vulnerabilities which can be illegally monetised and misappropriated. It is recommended that this proposal be scrapped altogether.

Clause 7.2 (iii): Power of government bodies

As per this clause, data trustees or government bodies (who could also be acting as data trustees) can make requests for data sharing and place such data in appropriate data infrastructures or trusts. This presents a conflict of interest, as a data trust or government body can empower itself to be the data trustee. Such cases should be addressed within the scope of the framework.

Clause 8.2 (vii): Level-playing field for all Indian actors

In terms of this clause the “Non-Personal Data Authority (Authority) will ensure a level playing field for all Indian actors to fulfil the objective of maximising Indian data’s value to the Indian economy”. The emphasis on ensuring a level playing field for only Indian actors instead of non-discriminatory platform for all concerned actors irrespective of the country/nationality of the actor has the potential of violating India’s trade obligations under the WTO. Member states of the WTO are essentially restricted from discriminating between products and services coming from different WTO Members, and between foreign and domestic products and services unless they can avail of exceptions. There is also no clarity on what constitutes ‘Indian Actors’, would a Multi-National Corporation with its headquarters in a foreign State, but its subsidiaries in India also come within its ambit.

Clause 8.2 (x): Composition of the Authority

Clause 8.2 (x) states that the Authority will have some members with relevant industry experience. However, apart from this clause, the report is silent on the composition of the Authority. The report recognises that Authority will need individuals/organisations with specialised knowledge, i.e. data governance, technology, latest research and innovation in the field of non-personal data), however, it does not mention or refer to the role of civil society organisations and the need for representation from such organisations in the Authority.

The report frequently alludes to non-personal data being used for the best interest of the data principal and therefore, it is essential that the composition of the Authority reflect the inherent asymmetry of power between the data principal and the State. Considering that the Authority will also be responsible for sharing of community data and with determining the code of conduct for sharing of such data, it is important that the Authority also has adequate representation from civil society organisations along with groups or individuals having the necessary technological and legal skills.

Clause 8.2 (iii) and (vi): Roles and Responsibility of the Authority

A majority of the datasets in the country comprise of ‘mixed datasets’, i.e. it consists of both personal and non-personal data. However, there is lack of clarity about the coordination between the Data Protection Authority constituted under the PDP Bill and the Non-Personal Data Authority with regard to the regulation of such datasets. The Report refers to the European Union which provides that the Non-Personal Data Regulation applies to the Non-Personal Data of mixed datasets; if the Non-Personal Data part and the personal data parts are ‘inextricably linked’, the General Data Protection Regulation apply to the whole mixed dataset. However, it is unclear whether the Report also proposes the same mechanism for the regulation of mixed datasets.

Further, the contours of the enforcement role of the Committee should be specified and clearly laid down. Will the Committee also have penal powers as prescribed for the Data Protection Authority under the PDP Bill? Also, will the privacy concerns emanating from the risk of re-anonymisation of data be addressed by the NPD Committee or by the DPA under the PDP Bill. Ideally, it should be specified that any such privacy concerns will fall within the domain of the DPA as the data is then converted into personal data and the DPA will be empowered to deal with such issues.

Endnotes

[1] See Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. (2020). National Digital Health Blueprint. Government of India. https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20NDHB%20report_0.pdf; Tandon, A. (2019). Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System. https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts

[2] Taylor, L., Floridi, L., van der Sloot, B. eds. (2017) Group Privacy: new challenges of data technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.

[3] Mittelstadt, B. (2017). From Individual to Group Privacy in Big Data Analytics. Philos. Technol. 30, 475–494.

[4] See Taylor, L., Floridi, L., van der Sloot, B. eds. (2017) Group Privacy: new challenges of data technologies. Dordrecht: Springer; Tisne, M. (n.d). The Data Delusion: Protecting Individual Data Isn't Enough When The Harm is Collective. Stanford Cyber Policy Centre. https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/data-delusion

[5] Rocher, L., Hendrickx, J.M. & de Montjoye, Y. (2019). Estimating the success of re-identifications in incomplete datasets using generative models. Nat Commun 10, 3069 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10933-3

[6] Finck, M. & Pallas, F. (2020). They who must not be identified—distinguishing personal from non-personal data under the GDPR. International Data Privacy Law, 10 (1), 11–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz026

[7] European Commission (2020). Communication From The Commission To The European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic And Social Committee And The Committee Of The Regions: A European strategy for data. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1593073685620&uri=CELEX:52020DC0066

[8] Modrall, Jay. (2019). Antitrust risks and Big Data. Norton Rose Fullbright. https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en-in/knowledge/publications/64c13505/antitrust-risks-and-big-data

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework

IFAT and ITF - Protecting Workers in the Digital Platform Economy: Investigating Ola and Uber Drivers’ Occupational Health and Safety

2021-06-29T06:53:47Z

Between July to November 2019, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers. CIS is proud to publish the study report and the press release. Akash Sheshadri, Ambika Tandon, and Aayush Rathi of CIS supported post-production of this report.

Report: Download (PDF)

Press Release: Download (PDF)

Press Release, August 25, 2020

Between July to November 2019, IFAT and ITF conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers.

Some of the most startling findings from the survey are below:

There is a complete absence of social security and protection—a glaring 95.3% claimed to have no form of insurance, accidental, health or medical. This reflects the inability of workers to invest in their own health. This partly is a result of declining wages—after paying off their EMIs, penalties and commission to the companies and having less than Rs. 20,000 left at the end of the month.
Only 0.15% of the respondents reported to have access to accidental insurance, which is the bare minimum companies like Ola and Uber should have provided to their drivers.
Uber and Ola provide no assistance with regard to harassment and violence while drivers are on the road. Ola or Uber for the most part do not intervene if there is any intimidation from traffic police or local authorities, incidents of road rage, violent attack by customers or criminal elements that endanger drivers’ lives, accidents while driving etc.
On average drivers spend close to 16-20 hours in their cars in a day. 39.8% of the respondents spent close to 20 hours in their vehicle in a day, and 72.8% of the respondents from Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad drive for close to 20 hours a day. Due to long hours, 89.8% of the respondents claim they get less than 6 hours of sleep.
Health issues arising directly as a result of conditions of work is affecting the day-to-day lives of workers. Backache, constipation, liver issues, waist pain and neck pain are the top five health ailments that app-based transport workers suffer from due to their work. 60.7% respondents identified backache as a major health issue.

App-based drivers/driver partners work in a very toxic and isolated work environment. Drivers can’t exit their current occupational status even if they want to because they are shackled in debts and outstanding EMIs. As a result, they race every day to complete targets so that they may earn just enough to pay these liabilities.

The work these drivers are engaged in cannot be considered to be within the ambit of decent work and in reality, is representative of modern slavery. The algorithm of the companies they work for, pits them against their peers in order to maximize profit, while at the same time denying them social security or protection and essentially refusing to acknowledge them as employees.

Drivers working in various cities and working for different app-based platforms have complained about the lack of transparency in how these app-based companies determine fares, promotional cost, surge pricing, incentives, penalties and bonuses. There is little to no information on how rides are being fixed or are being allocated. There also isn't any effective grievance redressal mechanism to resolve any of the issues faced by workers.

The apathy of the state and the exploitation by app-based companies have brought the transport and delivery workers in a precipitous position across the globe. This is underlined and explained by the absence and lack of any social security or protection for the workforce, there are some other issues that the workforce is battling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hear our voices and address our demands.

- Shaik Salauddin

National General Secretary, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)
Phone: +91 96424 24799

Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers
Facebook: connectifat
Twitter: @connect_ifat
YouTube: Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety

IFAT and ITF - Locking Down the Impact of Covid-19

2021-06-29T07:27:09Z

This report, by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, explores the responses to the outbreak of Covid-19 by digital platform based companies, trade unions, and governments to help out workers for digital platform based companies hereafter app based workers during the lockdown. The research work in this article is a characterization of the struggles of app based workers during the global pandemic and how it has affected and changed the world of work for them. The surveys were conducted amongst the workforce working for app based companies like Ola, Uber, Swiggy, Zomato etc. This study is partially supported by CIS as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications.

Report: Download (PDF)

Press Release: Download (PDF)

Press Release, 17 September, 2020

Between March and June 2020, IFAT and ITF conducted 4 surveys with transport and delivery workers to assess (i) their income levels during the Covid-19 pandemic, (ii) the burden of loan repayment during these months, (iii) the relief provided to them by companies, and (iv) the access to welfare schemes offered by state and central governments.

The first survey, on income levels and loans administered in March 2020, had 5964 respondents, across 55 cities, in 16 states. The second and third surveys conducted in April 2020, on financial relief from companies and governments, had 1630 respondents, across 59 cities, in 16 states. The fourth survey was conducted in June 2020 to assess income levels as the economies were slowing opening up. Some of the most startling findings from the 4 surveys are:

The average monthly EMI of the respondents in March 2020 was between Rs. 10,000 - 20,000. 51% of the respondents had taken vehicle loans from 19 national public sector banks.
30.3% of the respondents worked between 40-50 hours a week, in the week prior to the first national lockdown. Despite high hours of work, the average income of the drivers for the week commencing April 15, 2020 was less than Rs. 2500. 57% of respondents earned between 0 to Rs. 2250.
89.8% of workers did not receive any ration or food assistance, and 84.5% did not receive any financial assistance from either companies or governments.
Where companies had announced financial assistance programmes, including through donations collected by customers, there was no transparency in disbursement of funds. Other reasons for exclusion included administrative red tape (such as the requirement to produce bills that are GST compliant), and absence of clear criteria for eligibility, leading to random disbursement, among others.
Ola announced waiving off the rental amount for leased vehicles, and asked drivers to return such vehicles. However, there was no announcement of a plan to repossess vehicles once there was an easing of the lockdown, causing great anxiety among workers.
After the easing of the national lockdown, 69.7% of respondents indicated that they had no earnings, while 20% earned between Rs.500 to 1500.
2716 respondents from 19 states across gig platforms articulated their support for a peaceful demonstration against company practices.
Mandatory installation of Aarogya Setu by workers raised concerns of privacy, as this would allow companies to surveil workers and collect data on their movements after work hours.

IFAT organised several meetings and protests after each survey, to bring attention to the vulnerable conditions of workers. At these gatherings, workers raised the following key demands:

Companies must reduce commission rates to 5%, to allow workers to get back on their feet, and compensate for losses over the past few months;
Adequate protective equipment and health insurance cover to all drivers must be provided;
There must be increased transparency in disbursement process of funds, and in the criteria for selection of beneficiaries;
Compounded interest must be waived on EMIs for the 3 months of moratorium on loan repayment.

Hear our voices and address our demands.

Shaik Salauddin

National General Secretary, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)

Phone: +91 96424 24799

Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers

Facebook: www.facebook.com/watch/connectifat/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/connect_ifat

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1AxGq0Fb_A_O_Ey44eiPg

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19

Gig and platform workers’ perspectives on worker collectives

Shaik Salauddin — 2024-08-13T02:50:05Z

This report highlights findings from a survey conducted by the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union on platform workers’ perspectives around various worker collectives, particularly platform worker unions and cooperative societies. The survey was conducted with workers working for app-based platform companies like Ola, Uber, InDriver, Swiggy, Zomato, and Flipkart.

Survey report: download (PDF)

Press release: download (PDF)

To understand worker perspectives on diverse types of worker collectives, the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union conducted surveys with 79 workers, who had worked in the sector for a median of 5 years. 51% of the workers who were surveyed were members of TGPWU.

The survey findings highlight workers’ perspectives relating to the type and effectiveness of various union structures, priority of union demands, and their interest in joining cooperative societies.

This report highlights key findings from the survey, some of which detailed below:

Workers had a high preference for collective structures that are democratically owned and controlled by workers, with 75% of them expressing interest in joining a cooperative society.
Out of several worker support services that cooperative societies can offer, priority services that workers highlighted were healthcare services, insurance services, and educational support for children of members.
46% of workers each cited independent unions, and unions that were affiliated with another trade union as their preferred forms of union structures.
Around 40% of workers each found that both these forms of union structure were effective in terms of i) presenting worker demands to central and state governments, and ii) promoting worker representation and democratic participation.
66% of workers placed high importance on union demands that focus on both platforms and governments.

Contributors

Design: Annushka Jaliwala
Research conceptualisation: Shaik Salauddin
Research support and writing: Chetna V.M., Nishkala Sekhar, Chiara Furtado, Aayush Rathi

About the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union

The Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU) is an independent, worker-led union founded in 2021 for gig and platform workers in Telangana, India. TGPWU has over 1,000 active members and has had over 10,000 registered members since its inception.

Contact: tgapwu@gmail.com; +91 96424 24799

Connect: Website; Twitter/X; Facebook; Telegram

The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/gig-and-platform-workers-perspectives-on-worker-collectives

Getting the (Digital) Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Right

arindrajit — 2022-10-03T14:56:22Z

On the eve of the Tokyo Quad Summit in May 2022, President Biden unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), visualising cooperation across the Indo-Pacific based on four pillars: trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonisation and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption. Galvanised by the US, the other 13 founding members of the IPEF are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The first official in-person Ministerial meeting was held in Los Angeles on 9 September 2022.

The article was originally published in Directions on 16 September 2022.

It is still early days. Given the broad and noncommittal scope of the economic arrangement, it is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a trade deal among members in the short run. Instead, experts believe that this new arrangement is designed to serve as a ‘framework or starting point’ for members to cooperate on geo-economic issues relevant to the Indo-Pacific, buoyed in no small part by the United States’ desire to make up lost ground and counter Chinese economic influence in the region.

United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai has underscored the relevance of the Indo-Pacific digital economy to the US agenda with the IPEF. She has emphasized the importance of collaboratively addressing key connectivity and technology challenges, including standards on cross-border data flows, data localisation and online privacy, as well as the discriminatory and unethical use of artificial intelligence. This is an ambitious agenda given the divergence among members in terms of technological advancement, domestic policy preferences and international negotiating stances at digital trade forums. There is a significant risk that imposing external standards or values on this evolving and politically-contested digital economy landscape will not work, and may even undermine the core potential of the IPEF in the Indo-Pacific. This post evaluates the domestic policy preferences and strategic interests of the Framework’s member states, and how the IPEF can navigate key points of divergence in order to achieve meaningful outcomes.

State of domestic digital policy among IPEF members

Data localisation is a core point of divergence in global digital policymaking. It continues to dominate discourse and trigger dissent at all international trade forums, including the World Trade Organization. IPEF members have a range of domestic mandates restricting cross-border flows, which vary in scope, format and rigidity (see table below). Most countries only have a conditional data localisation requirement, meaning data can only be transferred to countries where it is accorded an equivalent level of protection – unless the individual whose data is being transferred consents to said transfer. Australia and the United States have sectoral localisation requirements for health and defence data respectively. India presently has multiple sectoral data localisation requirements. In particular, a 2018 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directive imposed strict local storage requirements along with a 24-hour window for foreign processing of payments data generated in India. The RBI imposed a moratorium on the issuance of new cards by several US-based card companies until compliance issues with the data localisation directive were resolved. Furthermore, several iterations of India’s recently withdrawn Personal Data Protection Bill contained localisation requirements for some categories of personal data.

Indonesia and Vietnam have diluted the scopes of their data localisation mandates to apply, respectively, only to companies providing public services and to companies not complying with other local laws. These dilutions may have occurred in response to concerted pushback from foreign technology companies operating in these countries. In addition to sectoral restrictions on the transfer of geospatial data, South Korea retains several procedural checks on cross-border flows, including formalities regarding providing notice to individual users.

Moving onto another issue flagged by USTR Tai, while all IPEF members recognise the right to information privacy at an overarching or constitutional level, the legal and policy contours of data protection are at different stages of evolution in different countries. Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have data protection frameworks in place. Data protection frameworks in India and Brunei are under consultation. Notably, the US does not have a comprehensive federal framework on data privacy, although there are patchworks of data privacy regulations at both the federal and state levels.

Regulation and strategic thinking on artificial intelligence (AI) are also at varying levels of development among IPEF members. India has produced a slew of policy papers on Responsible Artificial Intelligence. The most recent policy paper published by NITI AAYOG (the Indian government’s think tank) refers to constitutional values and endorses a risk-based approach to AI regulation, much like that adopted by the EU. The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), chaired by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, expressed concerns about the US ceding AI leadership ground to China. The NSCAI’s final report emphasised the need for US leadership of a ‘coalition of democracies’ as an alternative to China’s autocratic and control-oriented model. Singapore has also made key strides on trusted AI, launching A.I. verify – the world’s first AI Governance Testing Framework for companies that wish to demonstrate their use of responsible AI through a minimum verifiable product.

IPEF and pipe dreams of digital trade

Some members of the IPEF are signatories to other regional trade agreements. With the exception of Fiji, India and the US, all the IPEF countries are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which also includes China. Five IPEF member countries are also members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) that President Trump backed out of in 2017. Several IPEF members also have bilateral or trilateral trading agreements among themselves, an example being the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA) between Singapore, New Zealand and Chile.

All these ‘mega-regional’ trading agreements contain provisions on data flows, including prohibitions on domestic legal provisions that mandate local computing facilities or restrict cross-border data transfers. Notably, these agreements also incorporate exceptions to these rules. The CPTPP includes within its ambit an exception on the grounds of ‘legitimate public policy objectives’ of the member, while the RCEP incorporates an additional exception for ‘essential security interests’.

IPEF members are also spearheading multilateral efforts related to the digital economy: Australia, Japan and Singapore are working as convenors of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which counts 86 WTO members as parties. India (along with South Africa) vehemently opposes this plurilateral push on the grounds that the WTO is a multilateral forum functioning on consensus and a plurilateral trade agreement should not be negotiated within the aegis of the WTO. They fear, rightly, that such gambits close out the domestic policy space, especially for evolving digital economy regimes where keen debate and contestation exist among domestic stakeholders. While wary of the implications of the JSI, other IPEF members, such as Indonesia, have cautiously joined the initiative to ensure that they have a voice at the table.

It is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a digital trade arrangement in the short run. Policymaking on issues as complex as the digital economy that must respond to specific social, economic and (geo)political realities cannot be steamrolled through external trade agreements. For instance, after the Los Angeles Ministerial India opted out of the IPEF trade pillar citing both India’s evolving domestic legislative framework on data and privacy as well as a broader lack of consensus among IPEF members on several issues, including digital trade. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal explained that India would wait for the “final contours” of the digital trade track to emerge before making any commitments.

Besides, brokering a trade agreement through the IPEF runs a risk of redundancy. Already, there exists a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of regional trading agreements that IPEF members can choose from, in addition to forming bilateral trade ties with each other.

This is why Washington has been clear about calling the IPEF an ‘economic arrangement’ and not a trade agreement. Membership does not imply any legal obligations. Rather than duplicating ongoing efforts or setting unrealistic targets, the IPEF is an opportunity for all players to shape conversations, share best practices and reach compromises, which could feed back into ongoing efforts to negotiate trade deals. For example, several members of RCEP have domestic data localisation mandates that do not violate trade deals because the agreement carves out exceptions that legitimise domestic policy decisions. Exchanges on how these exceptions work in future trade agreements could be a part of the IPEF arrangement and nudge states towards framing digital trade negotiations through other channels, including at the WTO. Furthermore, states like Singapore that have launched AI self-governance mechanisms could share best practices on how these mechanisms were developed as well as evaluations of how they have helped policy goals be met. And these exchanges shouldn’t be limited to existing IPEF members. If the forum works well, countries that share strategic interests in the region with IPEF members, including, most notably, the European Union, may also want to get involved and further develop partnerships in the region.

Countering China

Talking shop on digital trade should certainly not be the only objective of the IPEF. The US has made it clear that they want the message emanating from the IPEF ‘to be heard in Beijing’. Indeed, the IPEF offers an opportunity for the reassertion of US economic interests in a region where President Trump’s withdrawal from the CPTPP has left a vacuum for China to fill. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the IPEF has representation from several regions of the Indo-Pacific: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

This should be an urgent policy priority for all IPEF members. Since its initial announcement in 2015, the Digital Silk Road (DSR), the digital arm of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has spearheaded massive investments by the Chinese private sector (allegedly under close control of the Chinese state) in e-commerce, fintech, smart cities, data centres, fibre optic cables and telecom networks. This expansion has also happened in the Indo-Pacific, unhampered by China’s aggressive geopolitical posturing in the region through maritime land grabs in the South China Sea. With the exception of Vietnam, which remains wary of China’s economic expansionism, countries in Southeast Asia welcome Chinese investments, extolling their developmental benefits. Several IPEF members – including Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore – have associations with Chinese private sector companies, predominantly Huawei and ZTE. A study evaluating Indonesia’s response to such investments indicates that while they are aware of the risks posed by Chinese infrastructure, their calculus remains unaltered: development and capacity building remain their primary focuses. Furthermore, on the specific question of surveillance, given evidence of other countries such as the US and Australia also using digital infrastructure for surveillance, the threat from China is not perceived as a unique risk.

Setting expectations and approaches

Still, the risks of excessive dependence on one country for the development of digital infrastructure are well known. While the IPEF cannot realistically expect to displace the DSR, it can be utilised to provide countries with alternatives. This can only be done by issuing carrots rather than sticks. A US narrative extolling ‘digital democracy’ is unlikely to gain traction in a region characterised by a diversity of political systems that is focused on economic and development needs. At the same time, an excessive focus on thorny domestic policy issues – such as data localisation and the pipe dream of yet another mega-regional trade deal – could risk derailing the geo-economic benefits of the IPEF.

Instead, the IPEF must focus on capacity building, training and private sector investment in infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. The US must position itself as a geopolitically reliable ally, interested in the overall stability of the digital Indo-Pacific, beyond its own economic or policy preferences. This applies equally to other external actors, like the EU, who may be interested in engaging with or shaping the digital economic landscape in the Indo-Pacific.

Countering Chinese economic influence and complementing security agendas set through other fora – such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – should be the primary objective of the IPEF. It is crucial that unrealistic ambitions seeking convergence on values or domestic policy do not undermine strategic interests and dilute the immense potential of the IPEF in catalysing a more competitive and secure digital Indo-Pacific.

Table: Domestic policy positions on data localisation and data protection

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right

Domestic Work in the ‘Gig Economy’

aayush — 2019-12-06T04:52:11Z

The CIS and Domestic Workers’ Rights Union (DWRU) are hosting a discussion on the ‘gig economy’ and domestic work on Saturday, November 16 at Student Christian Movement of India, Mission Road, Bangalore. This event is a part of a project supported by the Feminist Internet Research Network led by Association for Progressive Communication (APC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Presentation: Download (PDF)

Concept Note: Download (PDF)

Venue: Student Christian Movement of India (29, 2nd Cross, CSI Compound, Mission Road, Sampangi Rama Nagara)

Date and Time: Saturday, November 16, 3:00-5:30 pm

Location: URL (Google Maps)

Feminist Internet Research Network: URL

Over the last few months, the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) and the Domestic Workers’ Rights Union (DWRU) have been doing research on the platformisation of domestic work in India. In the first phase of the research, we gathered data through interviews with several stakeholders. More information about the project can be found here: https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement.

We now find ourselves in the second phase of the research in which we have prepared a preliminary report and are seeking feedback and inputs from experts. For this, we invite you to a roundtable discussion on domestic workers in the ‘gig economy’.

The participants at the roundtable will comprise of representatives from key stakeholder groups including platform workers (i.e. domestic workers sourcing jobs through platforms), platform companies, domestic workers organisations, civil society researchers and the state labour department.

The event will begin with a presentation of the project and our initial findings. The rest of the time is set aside for a semi-moderated discussion between all participants. To ensure a focused discussion, we are also limiting participation to 30, and are hoping to have a good mix across stakeholder groups.

If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Aayush Rathi at aayush@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116

Doing Standpoint Theory

Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi — 2019-12-06T04:59:35Z

Cross-posted from GenderIT, September 1, 2019

Image description: Three speech bubbles on different textures. Artist: Catalina Alzate

Feminist research methodology has evolved from different epistemologies, with several different schools of thought. Some of the more popular ones are feminist standpoint theory, feminist empiricism, and feminist relativism. Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power [2]. Feminist empiricism does not eschew traditional modes of knowledge production, but emphasises diversity of research participants for feminist (and therefore also rigorous) knowledge production [3]. Relativists have critiqued standpoint theory for its tendency to essentialise the experience of marginalised groups, and subsume them into one homogenous voice to achieve the goal of ‘emancipatory’ research [4]. Relativists instead focus on multiple standpoints, which could be Dalit women, lesbian women, or women with disabilities [5]. We will be discussing the practical applicability of these epistemologies to research practices in the field of technology and gender.

Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power.

As part of the Feminist Internet Research Network, the Centre for Internet and Society is undertaking research on the digital mediation of domestic and care work in India. The project aims to assess shifts in the sector, including conditions of work, brought on by the entry of digital platforms. Our starting point for designing a methodology for the research was standpoint theory, which we thought to be the best fit as the goal of the project was to disrupt dominant narratives of women’s labour in relation to platformisation. In the context of dalit feminis, Rege warns that standpoint research risks producing a narrow frame of identity politics, although it is critical to pay attention to lived experience and the “naming of difference” between dalit women and savarna women [6]. She asserts that neither ‘women’ nor ‘dalit women’ is a homogenous category. While feminist researchers from outside these categories cannot claim to “speak for” those within, they can “reinvent” themselves as dalit feminists and ally themselves with their politics.

In order to address this risk of appropriating the voices of domestic workers (“speaking for”), we chose to directly work with a domestic workers’ union in Bengaluru called Stree Jagruti Smiti. Bengaluru is one of the two cities we are conducting research in (the other being Delhi, with very few registered unions). This is meant to radically destabilise power hierarchies and material relations within the research process, as benefits of participatory research tend to accumulate with the researchers rather than participants [7].

Along with amplifying the voices of workers, a central objective of our project is to question the techno-solutionism that has accompanied the entry of digital platforms into the domestic work sector, which is unorganised and unregulated. To do so, we included companies and state labour departments as participants whose standpoint is to be interrogated. By juxtaposing the standpoints of stakeholders that have differential access to power and resources, the researcher is able to surface various conflicts and intersections in dominant and alternative narratives. This form of research also brings with it unique challenges, as researchers could find themselves mediating between the different stakeholders, while constantly choosing to privilege the standpoint of the least powerful - in this case the workers. Self-reflexivity then becomes necessary to ensure that the project does not slip into an absolutely relativist position, rather using the narratives of workers to challenge those of governments and private actors. This can also be done by ensuring that workers have agency to shape the agenda of researchers, thereby producing research which is instrumental in supporting grassroots campaigns and movements.

Self-reflexivity then becomes necessary to ensure that the project does not slip into an absolutely relativist position, rather using the narratives of workers to challenge those of governments and private actors.

Feminist participatory research itself, despite its many promises, is not a linear pathway to empowerment for participants [8]. At the very outset of the project, we were constantly asked the question by domestic workers and unions – why should we participate in this project? Researchers, in their experience, acquire information from the community throughout the process of data collection by positioning themselves as allies. However, as all such engagements are bound to limited timelines and budgets, researchers are then often absent at critical junctures where the community may need external support. We were also told that all too often, the output of the research itself does not make its way back to the participants, making it a one-way process of knowledge extraction. Being mindful of these experiences, we have integrated a feedback loop into our research design, which will allow us to design outputs that are accessible and useful to collectives of domestic workers.

Not only domestic workers and their organisations, many corporations operating these online portals and platforms often questioned the benefits of participating in the project. However, the manner of articulation differed. While attempting to reject the hierarchical nature of the researcher/participant relationship, we increasingly became aware that the underlying power equation was not a monolith. Rather, it varied across stakeholder groups and was explicitly contingent on the socially constructed positionalities already existing outside of the space of the interview. Companies, governments and workers all exemplified varying degrees of engagement with, knowledge of, and contributions to research. Interviews with workers and unions, and even some bootstrapped (i.e. without much external funding) , socially-minded companies, were often cathartic with an expectation of some benefits in return for opening themselves up to researchers. This was quite different for governments and larger companies, as conversations typically adhered to the patriarchal and classed notions of professionalism in sanitised, formal spaces [9] and the strict dichotomy between public and personal spaces. Their contribution seemingly required lesser affective engagement from the interviewee, thereby resulting in lesser investment in the outcome of the research itself.

The cathartic nature of interviews also speak to the impossibility of the distanced, Platonic, school of research. We were often asked politically charged questions, our advice solicited and information sought. Workers and representatives from platform companies alike would question our motivations with the research and challenge us by inquiring about the benefits accruing to us. Again, both set of stakeholders would often ask differently about how other platforms were; workers already registered on a platform would wonder if another platform would be ‘better’ and representatives of platform companies would be curious about competition. This is perhaps a consequence of attempting to design a study that is of use and of interest to the workers we have been reaching out to [10]. At times, we found ourselves at a place in the conversation where we were compelled to respond to political positions for the conversation to continue. There were interviews where notions of caste hierarchies (within oppressed classes) as a justification/complaint for engaging/having to engage in certain tasks would surface. Despite being beholden to a feminist consciousness that disregards the idea of the interviewer as neutral, we often found ourselves only hesitantly forthcoming. At times, it was to keep the interview broadly focused around the research subject, at others it was due to our own ignorance about the research artefact (in this instance, platforms mediating domestic work services). This underscores the challenges of seeing the interview as a value ridden space, where the contradictions between the interview as a data collection method and as a consciousness raising emerged - how could we share information about the artefact we were in the process of collecting data about?

We were often asked politically charged questions, our advice solicited and information sought.

The fostering of ‘rapport’ [11] has made its may into method, almost unknowingly. Often, respondents across stakeholder groups started from an initial place of hesitation, sometimes even suspicion. Several structural issues could be at work here - our inability in being able to accurately describe research itself, the class differences and at times, ideological ones as well. While with most participants, rapport was eventually established, its establishment was a laboured process. Especially given that we were using one-off, in-depth interviews as our method, securing an interview was contingent on the establishment of rapport. This isn’t to suggest that feminist research mandatorily requires the ‘doing of rapport’ [12], but that when it does, it’s a fortunate outcome and that feminist researchers engage with it more critically.

Building rapport creates an impression of having minimised the exploitation of the participant, however the underlying politics and pressures of building rapport need to be interrogated. Rapport, like research itself, is at times a performance; rapport is often not naturally occuring. Rather, rapport may also be built to conceal the very structural factors preventing it. For instance, during instances of ideological differences during the interview, we were at times complicit through our silence. This may have been to further a certain notion of ‘objectivity’ itself whereby the building and maintenance of rapport is essential to surfacing a participant’s real views. This then raises the questions: What are the ethical questions that the suppression of certain viewpoints and reactions pose? How does the building, maintenance and continuance of rapport inform the research findings? Rapport, then, comes in all shapes and sizes and its manifold forms implicate the research process differently. Another critical question to be addressed is - why does some rapport take less work than others? With platform companies, building rapport came by easier than it did with workers both on and off platforms. If understood as removing degrees of distance between the researcher and participants, several factors could play into the effort required to build rapport. For instance, language was a critical determinant of the ease of relationship-building. Being more fluent in English than in colloquial Hindi enabled clearer articulation of the research. Further, familiarity with the research process was, as expected, mediated along class lines. This influenced the manner in which we articulated research outcomes and objectives to workers with complete unfamiliarity with the meaning of research. Among workers, this unfamiliarity often resulted in distrust, which required the underlying politics of the research to be more critically articulated.

By and large, the feminist engagement with research methods has been quite successful in its resistance and transformation of traditional forms. Since Oakley’s conception of the interview as a deeply subjective space [13] and Harding’s dialectical conception of masculinist science through its history [14], the application of feminist critical theory has increasingly subverted assumptions around the averseness of research to political motivations. At the same time, it has made knowledge-production occur in a more equitable space. It is in this context that standpoint theory has had wide purchase, but challenges persist in its application. As the foregoing discussion outlines, we have been able to achieve some of the goals of feminist standpoint research while missing out on others. We also found the ‘multiple standpoints’ approach of relativists to be useful in a project involving multiple stakeholders - thereby also avoiding the risk of essentialisation of the identities of domestic workers. However, unlike the tendency of relativists to focus on each perspective as ‘equally valid truth’, we are choosing to focus on the conflicts and intersections between emerging discourses. Through this hybrid theoretical framework, we are seeking to make knowledge production more equitable. At the same time, the discussion around rapport shows that this may nevertheless happen in a limited fashion. Feminist research may never be fully non-extractive. The reflexivity exercised and choices made during the course of the research are key.

Unlike the tendency of relativists to focus on each perspective as ‘equally valid truth’, we are choosing to focus on the conflicts and intersections between emerging discourses.

Endnotes

[1] The names of the authors are in alphabetical order.

[2] Harding, S. (2003) The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, Routledge.

[3] M. Wickramasinghe, Feminist Research Methodology: Making meaning out of meaning-making, Zubaan, 2014

[4] Pease, D. (2000) Researching profeminist men's narratives: participatory methodologies in a postmodern frame. In B. Fawcett, D. Featherstone, J. Fook ll)'ld A. Rossiter (eds) Restarching and Practising in Social Work: Postmodern Feminist Perspectives (London: Routledge).

[5] Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1983) Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).

[6] Rege, S. 1998. ” Dalit Women Talk Differently: A critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint.” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No.44, pp 39-48.

[7] Heeks, R. and Shekhar, S. (2018) An Applied Data Justice Framework: Analysing Datafication and Marginalised Communities in Cities of the Global South. Working Paper Series, Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester.

[8] Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawn and partners: disability research and the role of nondisabled researchers. British Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 699-716.

[9] Evans, L. (2010). Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals. Br. J. Educ. Stud. 56, 20–38. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00392.x

[10] Webb C. Feminist methodology in nursing research. J Adv Nurs. 1984 May;9(3):249-56.

[11] Berger, R. (2015). Now I see it, now I don’t: researcher’s position and reflexivity in qualitative research. Qual. Res. 15, 219–234. doi:10.1177/1468794112468475; Pitts, M. J., and Miller-Day, M. (2007). Upward turning points and positive rapport development across time in researcher-participant relationships. Qual. Res. 7, 177–201. doi:10.1177/1468794107071409

[12] Dunscombe, J., and Jessop, J. (2002). “Doing rapport, and the ethics of ’faking friendship’,” in Ethics in Qualitative Research, eds T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner, and J. Jessop (London: SAGE), 108–121.

[13] Oakley, A. (1981). “Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms?” in Doing Feminist Research, ed. H. Roberts (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 30–61.

[14] Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/doing-standpoint-theory