Centre for Internet and Society

Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries

nishant — 2008-11-03T20:14:45Z

The essay was published in the European Journal of English Studies in a special issue on Multimedia Narratives. Emerging as an epistemological category with the rise of the Information and Communication Technologies, the cyborg leads to a complex set of negotiations about the production of a cyborg identity. This paper looks at the cyborg as a translator, to see the new mechanics of translation that come into play as the cyborg straddles multiple systems of making meaning and producing itself. Analysing the new social networking systems that have emerged in the last few years, the paper posits the cyborg as not only an author of translated texts but also as produced in the processes of translation. Focusing on one particular instance of the production of a cyborg identity, exploring the various players involved in the process of cyborgification and the material consequences of imagining the cyborg, the paper seeks to analyse the new incomprehensibility or illegalities that the cyborg, in its role as a translator, gets produced within.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/cis/nishant/material%20cyborgs%20ejes.pdf

Breach Notifications

Admin — 2017-11-14T15:31:38Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/breach-notifications.pdf

WIPO SCCR 27 (April 29, 2014)

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T00:02:08Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-day-2-april-29-2014.pdf

WIPO SCCR 27 (April 28, 2014)

praskrishna — 2014-05-04T23:54:18Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-27-day-1-april-28-2014.pdf

WIPO SCCR Text (April 28, 2014)

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T00:35:07Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/2014-04-28_sccr.txt

WIPO SCCR 27 Text (April 28, 2014)

praskrishna — 2014-05-02T14:36:06Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-27-discussions-transcripts.txt

Gen Comments PDP Bill 2019

pallavi — 2020-02-21T10:00:16Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/gen-comments-pdp-bill-2019

CIS' General Comments to the PDP Bill 2019

pallavi — 2020-02-21T10:10:54Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/cis-general-comments-to-the-pdp-bill-2019

Attentional Capital in Online Gaming : The Currency of Survival

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T10:46:56Z

This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds.

Virtual Worlds1 have been examined extensively for their capacities in creating simulated spaces for fun, play, and entertainment. Presently there is a trend in research studies worldwide to focus on examining questions of informational labour, production, ownership, racism, and the currencies of trade. By drawing examples from the published works of some of the leading writers in this field , I explore these questions and their connections with attention currency and the attention economy2 in gaming. I posit attention currency as a third currency in addition to virtual and real currencies in the ability in which it operates as a currency. Through the concepts put forth, an attempt is made for a reading of attentional capital, attention currencies, attention repositories, trades in attention, and the functions of attention as a currency in gaming economies besides a reading of confluences in terminologies and application and to expand them to examine attention economies in gaming. The games examined for this purpose are wide ranging, such as Eternal Duel, Rising Era from the Fantasy RPG Genre, Travian, T.K.O from the RTS genre, and select and limited readings of and around WoW. All of these fall under the MMO genre.3

Introduction

Edward Castronova is a professor at Indiana University and has prolifically written on virtual economies. His most prominent works are 'Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games' and 'Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality' and has done extensive research and commentaries on the economies of virtual worlds and online games. His concept the 'Avatarial Capital' (Castronova 2005) is articulated in a similar manner as Human Capital4 , and Cultural Capital.5 Castronova's Avatarial capital is approached as a set of non-material factors such as in-game knowledge, experience, growth, skills and other character related functions. Along the same lines as human capital and cultural capital, increases in the investments in Avatar Capital proportionally increases the power of the entity (p. 41 Castronova 2005 also refer p. 110-114).

What would be ideally termed, in a broader fashion, as 'attentional capital' is articulated by Castronova as Avatar Capital in a minimalist manner, such that it can be argued that avatar capital forms an essential and basic part of attentional capital in gaming. Some concepts that are accepted as exemptions (real world problems – race, class, and gender – devoid in Synthetic Worlds) are addressed by Nakamura when she engages with questions of human capital and cultural capital in fantasy warfare games such as World of Warcraft (WoW). By examining concepts of production and segregation of production processes as well as organic systems of production and designed systems of production, an attempt is made to read racialisation of informational labour within virtual worlds in light of designed races, rather than real races and posit that other forms of racism and racial warfare exist. This in contrast to Nakamura's examination dealing with racial stereotyping of informational labour, particularly of the fourth world labour, an attempt is made to posit that racial and/or class warfare (not similar in the manner that Nakamura addresses racial warfare) is present and inevitable in any designed world that has characteristics of Role Play. I posit that such forms of racial warfare need not necessarily be examined as a proxy warfare among leisure gamers and worker gamers but as inherent in any fantasy construct that places racial choices as essential to imagining certain types of roles within the game.

Lisa Nakamura is a professor in the Institute of Communications Research and Director of the Asian American Studies program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her work revolves around questioning race, ethnicity, and identity in Virtual Worlds. Robbie Cooper who has written expansively on Avatar Identities and their relation with the real identities of gamers (and thus relevant to locating any shifts in attention trades) has been approached through secondary readings, reviews and a partial (limited preview) reading of the text, due to the availability or lack thereof of the text in question. By addressing avatar identities and their links to real world identities, connections can be made in the way attentional capital and attention currency interacts with, and between, virtual, and real world currencies. Although questions of the Virtual - Real Binary6 arise through multiple tangents, it is only examined as a part of discussing the Earth - Synthetic binary that Castronova uses. An attempt is made to clarify some of the terms which are common to this field and place them in perspective. The terms, their limitations and some binaries are juxtaposed for discussion. This is not to imply that Castronova cannot be used to read virtual worlds (or rather their economies), on the contrary his narrative becomes more central as his predictions on exponential growth and impact7 of virtual worlds (economies) are realized.8

By using these authors and their concepts, I posit that Attention can be read as a currency of transaction that enables the survival of the player in virtual gaming worlds and at most stages forms a pre-requisite often similar to real world currencies – a basic amount of which ensures human survival. Drawn from the concepts of Goldhaber who posits that attention is an essential pre-requisite to human survival, I extend his reading to virtual worlds to locate the transactions in attention and attentional capital and how they influence the flows of attention as a currency – making a collection of attention currency essential to survival in a virtual world.

In the following segments some of the terminologies, their dichotomies, and a commentary is made on the terms common to this area. The specific usage by these writers and the commentary is speculative, interpretative, and by no means a closed debate. I explore the terms and attempt to make connections with the attention economy in gaming and in the process explore the possibilities of expanding or broadening some of the terms.

Synthetic Worlds

Castronova (2005) describes Synthetic Worlds as[C]rafted places inside computers that are designed to accommodate large numbers of people. He goes on to describe Synthetic Worlds as the playgrounds of imagination being host to ordinary human activity. The only notable difference between simulated worlds in offline settings and online settings is that the latter can accommodate a large number of people. This definition basically stands for almost all online games, be they client-server, browser-based, persistent worlds,9 text based (also MUDs10),and many more where multiple users can engage with each other in an online setting, but by focusing on MMORPGs and visual superiority. Castronova in this process isolates multiple genres of games that are capable of social, political, and economic activity similar to that of graphically constructed worlds.

On developing his thesis Castronova seems to suggest an undue emphasis on worlds that are graphically represented and superior (visually well defined and designed), and such games/worlds being viable synthetic worlds. Viability can be interpreted as the immersion of the player in the game as one factor. On the other hand the economic viability of the synthethic world could be another factor, economic in that there are active gold farming (termed secondary) markets in that game. In such a case synthetic worlds as a term is applicable to even non-graphical text based constructs that run online. Julian Dibbell's documentation of the LambdaMoo community reiterates a certain complexity in the textual construction of the synthetic world, even though it is not visually or graphically represented.

On a similar note, virtual economic activity is not restricted to graphical worlds either.11 The economic activities and organizations that Castronova ascribes to these synthetic worlds are present in almost every virtual world (graphically or textually defined), where there is an aggregation of human activity and congregation of human avatars.12

The possibilities of human economic activity both within the virtual world and the real world can be connected through an examination of gold farming. Depending on attentional capital (and the attentional repository of the entire virtual world) economic activity connects to real world trade as well. Here the popularity of the game and the ability of the secondary market to generate profits is paramount. Synthetic Worlds or in an expansive definition Virtual Worlds and the attentional capital and repositories of attention are examined that support basic forms of communication, social interaction and game play.

In 'what is a synthetic world' an essay in Space, Time, and Play, Castronova, et al uses the term 'Synthetic Worlds' interchangeably with virtual worlds, the difference being a focus on the 'interconnections' between the two worlds. A reading of Castronova (2005), would suggest that his usage limited what synthetic (or virtual) worlds are capable and constitute of. By using Synthetic Worlds and Virtual Worlds interchangeably throughout this article, I intend to broaden Synthetic Worlds beyond Castronova's imposed limitations.13

When Castronova says that all synthetic worlds are MMORPGs, he has arguably limited the usage to only games that have an RPG element – furthermore, those with graphical clarity and representation. If say the Virtual World in question such as Eternal Duel were to be examined, it would not fall under what Castronova describes as a synthetic world largely because of its focus on a text based construction of Etheria. Interestingly, Etheria is not identified as a 'diasporic' homeland as much as the cities, the clans, or the game itself. In Eternal Duel, players tended towards their clans identity or the city they were based close to rather than 'Etheria' the Land itself. Unlike SL, WoW, and others where there is an identification towards the whole game 'land' such as a citizen of Lindenberg or Azeroth. Agreed that graphical constructions use visual aids to better connect with an imagined homeland, whereas the same immersive effect is restricted through text. Text based games such as these depend on the interpretative and subjective interpretations of the gamer to create, in the imagination, an idea of the homeland.

Even though Castronova (2005) states that virtual worlds as a conceptual term is closed and synthetic worlds are more open and interconnected (such that its not possible to read them as sealed and separate disconnected systems), it is possible that synthetic worlds are in fact limited in that they are applicable to certain graphically functional and visual worlds (MMORPGs according to Castronova) by express definition.

Perhaps it is relevant to look at MMORPGs as one among many other genres of online games, where there is a collection of avatars and a common synthetic world is constructed. Mizuko Ito in her documentation and usage of the 5thD project notes that the gamer and paired guide were able to construct 'micro-worlds' through narrative experiences of the real world in Simcity 2000, a city building simulation game. This construction of the micro-world was facilitated through a transfer of narrative experiences from the guide to the young gamer, through what is percieved as logical in the real world without actual knowledge of the scripts and algorithms behind the game that dictated its response. Reading micro-worlds as synthetic worlds has its own pitfalls and problems but such a reading is possible particularly when using the alone together phenomenon. Though an 'out of context' reading might be appropriate in an offline setting as well, where games have a sustainable14 capacity for immersion, the only failure, if any, would be evolution which is a predominant characteristic of virtual worlds in a massive setting.

Whereas RPG games in an offline setting do not have any types of evolution that is sustainable, this feature is resultant of the 'massive' effect in online games, such that narratives of the game are constantly rewritten and brief, even short periods of disconnections leads to a narrative disjunct in the player, which may surface as a diasporic experience. Diasporic experiences here are similar to real world diasporic displacements in that there is a severance from the imagined 'homeland' of the avatar. A severance results in the displacement of the avatar. Evolution of the world is a prominent feature in any persistent or even a temporary time-bound world, where there is an aggregation of human interest. Constant human activity, economic, social, and political create narrative disjuncts in the timeline for those players who are removed from that particular community. MMORPGs have strong evolutionary elements drawn from and often ascribed to the massive element15 such that any form of change within virtual synthetic worlds are resultant of the activities of thousands of people participating in that world including their organization, collective achievements in the achievement hierarchies and engagement in their virtual worlds.

There are often diasporic experiences faced by players on withdrawal from a community of gamers. The Uru Diaspora was one such – the diasporic effects were documented by Celia Pearce in Communities of Play. An extensive reading of identities, associations and severance of the homeland has been documented – examining concepts like the virtual homeland and association with the homeland such that there is a sense of rights and citizenship that arise out of this 'belonging', to eventually lead to a 'resurrection'. I would interpret diasporic experiences such as these as indicative of the immersive nature of the narrative architecture in an online game. Although the concept of the narrative architecture as one is largely applied to offline games, a confluence of human activity produces its own narrative, such that importing 'narrative architecture' to read into online spaces becomes possible.

Castronova's suggestion that there are possibilities of a thriving parallel economy in and through secondary markets16 makes it possible to locate avatar capital and by extension attentional capital more accurately. That is by terming avatar capital as a part of attentional capital, the outworld17 relevance of avatar capital and the possibility of attention flows functioning as a currency within virtual worlds and between the real world is made.18 It is possible to argue that Castronova implies certain attentional repositories when he posits that exploration, expansion, and advancement (p.110 Castronova 2005) are necessities to build up the player level, experience, and other intangible capital, which develops as the Avatar[ial] Capital, much in the same manner as Human Capital, Cultural Capital, and Gaming Capital (Pierre Bordieu's term 'Cultural Capital' is influential to both Castronova's 'Avatar[ial] Capital' and later Consalvo's 'Gaming Capital'). In the following sections, an attempt is made at approaching attention currency and its operations and positing attention as the currency of survival rather than the investments of either virtual or real world currencies.

Avatarial Capital, Attentional Capital, and the Repositories of Attention

Whereas Castronova places avatar skills and experience20 as 'avatar capital' alone is limiting, in that the focus is on one avatar rather than a set of avatars. This limit also manifests in the set of resources that the avatar has access to, particularly attention, which changes the accesses to resources in-world and out-world and effects the production of attention currency in its turn. Thus, it is almost cyclical in that attentional capital in repositories ensure survival, survival leads to greater activity and production in virtual worlds, which in turn gives greater accesses to in-world resources and avatarial capital and which then through the hierarchies of achievement produces more attentional capital.

Even though Castronova articulates the avatarial capital as a necessity (along with physical capital) for survival, he leaves out the relevance of ranking systems (that Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) posit as the achievement hierarchy) that seemingly organize a massive amount of data into statistically and graphically available information in almost every virtual world and through this activity build channels of attention. Attention then flows in often unpredictable manners21 and ensures the survival of the player or avatar character in that game. Every game has a system that organizes seemingly irrelevant information on avatars to provide a daily statistical representation on growth, (re-)investment, level, experience, amount of virtual gold, player vs player and non-player character 'kills' . In some hierarchies attemtpted attacks and successful kills are also recorded and made public with a ratio in percentage, the time aristocracy that lehdonvirta 2005, 2007 addresses can be located by this percentage represented in the achievement hierarchy, and so forth in a ranked hierarchy . Depending on the design and architecture of the game world (Synthetic Worlds), there may be detailed statistical data that provides for in-game information and players that are active, joined recently, completed a certain quest, requests assistance with another quest, etc., are news items that are filtered into general gameverse ranking, clan, community, alliance or group ranking.22 Central to the attentional capital and its flows are these gameverse23 ranking systems both internal to the game and external tools that pull data from the server to plot out potential targets for attacks, raids, and so forth.24 Metagaming, or influences on the game from outside the game and its rules, affects every scenario of gaming in some manner. Metagaming most often than not, dictates the attention of individuals and their investments in time and labour.

For instance – Travian which is a popular MMORTS25 has an array of scripts, tools, paid services, external data aggregators – i.e., external to the game - that assist in finding other players/alliances and groups for warfare. Although the game itself has sufficiently developed communication and social interaction systems26, players ranking 1-150027 most often use a variety of external tools and IM programs to support their gameplay.28 Skype or MSN29 becomes preferred means of communication, coordination, and policy30 discussion – and this is not limited to one game server (Travian) whose example I am citing. The number ranges that have been chosen select players whose achievements ranking is comparatively in the top 10 – 20 per cent in terms of activity, presence, and by extension, economic activity, in an international server this number would be a maximum of 1500-2000 whereas on regional servers which witness lower members the number ranges of active gamers with a reasonable growth rate are fixed at around 500-1000. These players have sufficient amount of attentional capital invested in their game to join larger groups based on common cultural symbols and perceived commonalities, which may amount to social commonalities.

Attentional Capital, though it draws from avatarial capital, is broader than just in-game related ranking.31 Attentional capital (and attentional repositories, which makes attention the basic currency of survival) would ideally encompass a larger sphere including real life associations as well as virtual world associations and experiences32 Avatarial capital limits itself to the collection of intangible non-material capital within gaming worlds alone, there is very little discussion (by Castronova or Nakamura who uses avatarial capital) on the extent to which avatarial capital can be streched. If the term is indeed limited to single virtual worlds, a concept of consolidation of avatars (naturally avatarial capital), which occurs at multiple points should also be articulated in light of attentional repositories which allow for the aggregation of attention to reach the threshold required for survival (and thus trade, activity, and so forth). This is not constant but almost always in flux, a lack of investment for a short period would mean death gradual or instant, and depends entirely on the disposition and design of the game in question.

Advancement and progression of an avatar is addressed by Castronova (2005) as the accumulation of the various forms of avatar capital within a virtual world enabling the 'avatar' greater access to the virtual world and the systems of production within the virtual world, defined or rather limited by a requirement for progression. If the avatar grows, more accesses to the game's systems become available, stagnation on the other hand limits these accesses. In a collective sense the growth of a lot of avatars (in an MMORPG) collectively denotes the growth of a synthetic world. Thus, essential to the aggregation of Avatarial Capital as well as attentional capital is the evolution of a synthetic world. Evolution that may be incorporated into the design of the game but is also in a state of constant change and extremely dynamic. A stagnation in the growth of avatars (in a collective) has repurcussion s in the exchanges of attention, exchanges of virtual currencies as well as the collective attention that resides in a synthetic world.. Stagnation even in markets inflicts attrition that destabilizes the virtual world – a lack of attention could well mean the stagnation and eventual decay of the virtual world – this effect can be attributed to Illusory Attention and the decay of attention – for more refer Goldhaber (1997, and 2008). The evolution and advancement could be rapid such that a break from this world for even a short duration, may result in minor diasporic effects. A loss of contact with a community that has developed and evolved in absentia of the player-avatar and non-investment, either of time or resources by the player makes the narrative disjunct more pronounced.By narrative disjunct, I imply that the narrative of the player and the narrative of the community is not in tune, such that diasporic yearnings may be present even without the closure of the game world which is what transpired in Uru – The uru diaspora is documented very well by Celia Pearce and Artemesia in “Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds”, 2009 MIT Press. This narrative growth and subsequent disjunct captures the essence of persistent worlds and evolution within them most appropriately. Thus, Synthetic Worlds as a conceptual term is limiting rather than liberating as Castronova (2003, 2005) implies, even with its conceptual failings at achieving a state of 'inter-connectedness'34 with the Real World, Virtual World is a conceptually anchored term to articulate human activity in online gaming spaces, perhaps broader than synthetic worlds.

Avatar capital can locate the influences of attentional capital. Castronova (2005) describes “the accumulated experience points and skills and attributes [as] avatar capital ”, which is the advancement through specific actions resulting in the growth or increment of non-physical capital of the avatar. What are the non-physical capital of the avatar? Non-physical capital is dependent on the design and genre of the game or MMORPG oriented games will have forms of character development that as represented as levels and stages, which when attained allows for further progression in gameplay. Some of these include but are not limited to the attributes, the skills, experience points, all depending on the design and model of the game world concerned. Empire building games on the other hand would design a different set of avatarial capital altogether.

Avatar capital enables further progression in the game world and makes accessible quest lines36, virtual goods linked to those quest lines, and higher growth, ability to gain more from attacks and so forth (The Sway of the stars as a Elvish37 race weapon grants additional gold income and experience points with each kill – largely for NPC attacks, i.e., Non Player Character attacks, other weapons38 are preferred for PvP {Player vs Player} attacks). At this stage the attempt is not to examine the 'real' value attached to the weapon in a fashion that Castronova et al (2008) does, but to locate the attentional capital that is generated by the possession of such a virtual good which enhances avatar capital. Thus, an almost cyclical progression, I extrapolate this further when examining production. So, its possible to articulate avatarial capital as a small part of attentional capital and its collection in what I would term as attentional repositories.

Whereas the Physical Capital is juxtaposed as the virtual money or goods/items and rewards that the avatar earns as part of gameplay (and subsequent reinvestment of rewards), and is the distinguishing link between real and virtual currencies. The time that is invested in production of virtual goods and the subsequent investment in attention (as a currency) and attentional capital (as the non material investments – such as expertise and the abstract concept called experience) can be located in the growth in what Castronova terms as the Avatar Capital.

Castronova et al (2009) examines the virtual world/synthetic world EverQuest and attempts a mapping of its economy. The authors attempt to read macroeconomic behaviours using real world definitions and attempt an economic mapping quite similar to how real world economies are mapped, the research concludes that real world patterns are present in virtual worlds and in the ways and means that virtual goods are traded. They examine the 'reality' of a virtual sword [Footnote: Please refer page 686, New media and society, 5, 11, 2009, the examination of the reality of the sword, similar to the painting 'this is not a pipe' points to reality of value associated with that object, an object that is considered unreal, non exitent in many terms, Michel Foucault also comments on issues of perception, reality, and the painting and its paradox of Rene` Magritte's painting “the Treachery of Images” 1929-30 – Foucault's focus on representation and simulcura is not necessary to interpreting castronova et al's reading of virtual reality and the real value associated with a virtual good. ] . Are they 'really real'? Castronova et al notes through their study that virtual goods often follow real world patterns and thus can be mapped with real world usages and affordances. Items are classified and graphically represented as furniture, food, clothing, accessories, collectibles and so forth. Castronova et al (2009) by noting that all virtual goods had certain real world categories, armour - clothing, food – what avatars ate and drank, furniture – solid items avatars kept in their huts (homes, etc), and so forth, locate the relevance and psychological value of virtual goods, even if they serve no 'real' purpose. They also noted that virtual worlds scarcely held items that had “no real world uses or affordances”. This is incidentally reiterated to some effect in the AVEA report, which also notes that the demand for virtual goods are a result of the designed spaces (Hamari and Lehdonvirta 2010). The attempt by Williamson et al (2010) and Castronova (2003, 2005) have been locating the shifts in 'Real Life' towards 'Avatar Life'. Castronova himself dictates that such a shift towards virtual worlds is inevitable and as discussed earlier, and although speculative, has materialized and noted by none other than Consalvo (2007) and Nakamura (2009).

Returning to the discussion, the authors note that currency is representational (The value of the paper currency we use is backed by gold from the treasury of the government), thus items and in-world currencies also serve the representational purpose and in trades against real currency indicate the investment of time and labour. Such that the value of a virtual good, or in some extreme gold farming cases the value of an avatar and character, are dependent on the time and effort that has been invested in its development and the level that it holds in the ranking statistics. A virtual good such as a sword may then indicate value associated with the time it would take to develop the sword. For instance: Race levels in the fantasy text-based browser game Eternal Duel require opals to gain race experience, Opals as a gem acts as any other gem in the game except that it cannot be traded and has to be earned through grinding, farming, mining, and similar other means that would require an investment in a great deal of time. Higher race levels bring higher access for each of the six races that are available in the game – the game in question is Eternal Duel [henceforth E.D.] and Rising Era. The elf39 race gets a higher healing rate after each activity related to production such as mining and attacks, whereas the human race gets a higher gold bonus, increasing the chances of each race to develop in its own course. The higher the experience level, the higher the chances of earning opals in attacks. Race weapons and armour provide added advantage in that any other activity of production would return higher returns for the investment of time. Thus, in the end, the value that is assigned to virtual goods where real money trades come into effect are:

That they denote an investment in time and labour which is saved in the means by which most virtual goods in gaming are acquired, and
The investment in the focused cognitive resources termed as attention transacts as real value and by extension as currency. This would be one method of locating attentional capital.

Attentional capital when it performs the functions of a currency is also representational in that the value of the item (the virtual good – including any virtual item that can be traded including avatars) depends on the market listings, the time (invested in development of that virtual good) and associated 'illusory attention' (a term borrowed from Goldhaber to situate attention and its potential and capacity to act as a currency), which is traded against real money. This form of trade saves the time that is otherwise invested in the production of this item, thus saving the purchasing party a considerable amount of time, which is transacted for real currency. Such gold farming trades are also called as RMT (real money trades – noted by Nakamura p.5 who cites Consalvo p.149-150, also refer lehdonvirta 2005, lehdonvirta and hamari and lehdonvirta 2010), the AVEA report classifies MMORPGs as the first genre of RMT. Why is the representational aspect of currencies necessary? Very simply if real currencies are representational and 'acquires' (however, that may be interpreted) a certain amount of 'reality' such that value associated with the currency and the item can be balanced and traded. It is clearly possible to interpret attentional capital having similar potential to 'acquire' real value and then emulate the functions of a currency that can be transacted for goods. But is attentional capital the same as attention currency (or for that matter attentional repository)?

I posit that Attentional Capital and by extension Attentional Repositories are dependent on the construction (visual and textual) of the avatar, in-group or out-group racial, ethnic, cultural, and other means of identification, symbolic associations with a particular identity or group, or a perception of a common shared culture, this is similar to constructing communities and Derek Lomas (2008) uses Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Community' to explore notions of associations (through self-representation) that can locate attentional capital in social networking.40 Lomas (2008) examines attentional capital that is built and developed through the elaborate constructions (including self representation) of profiles, through which there is an accumulation of attention (which is what I posit as the attention repository – a collection of attentional capital). The attention repository can be construed of as independent – associated to a player, or as a complex network of repositories that feed into each other through association, expression, and representation – as in a collective or a small group. Thus, the known/recognizable group identification of a particular player would mean a larger repository of attentional capital than a player with little or a lesser known group identification, even though that player may have a higher level of avatarial capital and physical capital to match. The repositories of the group would then feed into the attentional capital of the player, making identification (in-group, out-group, and so forth) easier and granting a certain amount of attention to the profile, which later results in an increased activity (and therefore, survival) in the concerned virtual world. On the notion of survival Goldhaber (1997) states thus:

“[P]ractically everyone must have some money to survive, so attention in some quantities is pretty much a prerequisite for survival, and attention is actually far more basic.”

In a similar manner, Goldhaber locates the relevance of currency (money) as 'the' essential pre-requisite for survival and suggests that attention is as relevant (if not more), I posit that attention in gaming (in all its capacities discussed earlier) is required minimally, as a pre-requisite amount, or what I would articulate as a threshold in the repositories for ensuring survival. This is where I propose that a threshold exits, which can be achieved or realized by the collection of attentional capital when there is

a certain amount built in the repository through what Castronova terms as Avatarial Capital42, and
the threshold limit is achieved through other associations or connections to other repositories.

This is where the discussion earlier on the connections of attention repositories comes into clearer focus. These associations43 have their own repositories (not necessarily unintended when represented in player profiles)44 and often these associations are capable of feeding attention into the players own repository.

The repositories of attention that I have explored and mentioned here are situated outside of the player avatars in other synthetic worlds, which is to say that there are – in some instances – multiple points of consolidation of avatars (and their repositories) to result in this threshold of survival being realized earlier without the collection of Avatarial capital. This is complex to articulate as well as demonstrate largely because it requires an in depth analysis, the data for which is nearly inaccessible (although, it is true that Castronova and his team were granted full access by Sony into their EverQuest Databases).

The multiple points of consolidation of avatars implies the consolidation of their attentional repositories of multiple avatars in multiple similar or different (in terms of genre) virtual worlds. In gold farming practices most trades are dependent on this threshold for survival as well as trades, for the threshold limit in the attentional repositories also implies the point at which trade can take place.45

For instance, avatar A is present on server 1 46 but has in earlier periods taken part in other servers 1-'n' and these avatars would be A1-A'n', where n is the identifiable version of the avatar in any synthetic world regardless of classification.47 Server 1 being a new game, avatar A will have a very short threshold of attentional capital and avatarial capital – assuming that, as yet, there has been no or minimal investments of time and labour in the development of the avatar that results in avatarial or physical capital.

The repository of avatar A at this juncture will be minimal in that particular synthetic world. For transactions of A1 avatar (that is gold farming for that avatar as a 'virtual good') there has to be an aggregation of attentional repository, which should ideally realize a threshold. This is achieved either through association or inter-connectedness of social viral networks, such that there are higher chances of survival, and in the case of gold farming higher chances of trade. In the event that there is minimal avatarial capital aggregation in A1, the possibility of avatarial consolidation at multiple points still exist. The pre-requisite threshold is achieved not by investments in A, but the investments made earlier in A'n' which feeds into the repository of A1 and survival is ensured. The repositories A1-A'n' would have a consolidated repository that enables avatar A1 to either initiate trade (a real world trade) or equally ensure survival rests in this consolidated repository, which has achieved a certain threshold. Note that this theory of multiple points of consolidation of avatars is not a common occurrence and is largely noticed in successful gold farming trades, and prominent players in any game server that incorporates avatar self representation through profiles, much like social networking profiles. The consolidated repository would mean that the threshold is reached at an earlier stage, than if the normal route of game play were to be taken where avatarial and non physical capital are built up.

To substantiate with a real world example, SARSteam48 is present on at least 2 of the 10 Travian international servers and is familiar with 8ag.49 Both having served in common and prominent alliances in multiple Travian servers for a considerable period of time, such that each ensure the others protection, if and when, by chance, they are present in nearby strategic locations in any server. In any new server 50 a chance encounter would mean that either player would list a PNAP51 in their profiles naming the other. This connection takes place regardless of actual contact and negotiation for a PNAP and ensures that the other multitudes of players planning an attack are made aware of strategic connections that the player possess to his advantage thus enabling a further exchange of attentional capital against illusory attention. Players viewing the PNAP and alliance markings, tags, and so forth will cease offensive strategies. As Goldhaber (1997) states there is always an exchange of illusory attention in such cases52, attention may be seen as flowing in both direction when in actuality attention flows are unidirectional compensated by Illusory attention. Lomas (2008) suggests that attention flows are regulated by self representation through profile pages and in the gaming context the same is true. Self representation is deliberative (also noted by Lomas 2008) and by representing selective information an attempt is made at controlling the attentional flows from that profile. For instance, in E. D. listing a mine's quality in the profile page might enable other players to invest their time and labour at mining so as to make a profit and to 'mine out' the mine and thus also make a profit for the owner.

In both the instances above, the focus is on one or two players and in such an out of context state, attention repositories and the threshold of trade and survival do not seem relevant, add to this the sheer numbers of an MMO and viral connections in an ever increasing spiral and attention repositories and the threshold becomes an essential part of survival in gaming and trade in gold farming.

Markets and Synthetic Worlds

In this section an attempt is made to read into trading and markets for virtual goods in synthetic worlds and outside of it thereby attempting to place secondary markets and their assumed or presumed legality and/or some form of incorporation into the regular internal market of the game. This would make reading production and segregation of production more accessible later on. Castronova (2003, 2005) does not directly engage with describing the secondary market in Synthetic Worlds, although the market activities that he points out – such as selling game goods on online auction sites (p.16), GNP of Norrath (the country in EverQuest – Sony) being higher than the per-capita income of India and China (p.19) – are activities that connect the internal game markets to the external ones, namely the secondary market, or more commonly known and accessible as the gold farming markets. Are gold farming markets the same as secondary (as external) markets , how are they different from the primary (internal) markets? Almost all secondary markets are external auction markets such as Ebay, or more formalized gold farming trade markets such as Virtualeconomies.net, agamegold.com, myMMOshop.com, gamegoldcentral.com and many others collectively form the external trading markets and economic organizations in the real world that profit from virtual labour and investment (in time and real money). Gold farming also takes place through listings in from forums to social networking sites and gold farming in India largely thrives through such listings. Dibbell (2006) notes the emergence of brokers, traders, and a multitude of intermediaries in the professional transactions of virtual game gold. The AVEA report corroborates thus:

[It is] now possible for any player, no matter how experienced or inexperienced, dedicated or casual, to obtain high-ranking avatars and possessions simply by purchasing them from a website. Virtual goods were commodified.

- AVEA report 2010 p.11

The core feature(s) of synthetic worlds as Castronova puts it would be applicable to any immersive environment such that his definition is applicable to most games particularly the ones recently released such that those functions are no longer limited in Online Gaming but contributes to the Alone Together phenomenon as well. Castronova states these worlds as "worlds—the fact that they are radically manufacturable places that can be shared by many people at once." The manner of sharing of worlds from a distanced perspective makes it possible to read some synthetic worlds as offline games that are shared in online spaces not directly with other players but as hinted earlier through the achievements hierarchy that is constructed online, even though actual gameplay is strictly offline. For instance, the recent release of games such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, The Witcher, and many more allow for a certain type of alone together phenomenon which takes place through forum posts, player profiles, and discussions. Note that although there is no online gameplay, similar effects of online gameplay are reflected in the statistics that appear online and create an achievement hierarchy regardless of online activity. Although attentional capital plays a role in such spaces, there is very little connections to survival and team play that it results in.

Immersion and Immersive Environments - A Different Perspective

Immersive environments can be considered as emotionally invested spaces, spaces where there is a investment in the character as well as the synthetic world. Ethnographic interviews point to immersion being a key motivator for role playing games. Role Play or games that implemented certain elements of role play.

Immersive environments are often described as the emotional investments that the player makes in the character or the game environment. Turkle (1995) describes role play as the practice of pretending to be someone else within a fictional space.

The reinvestment of virtual physical and non physical capital enables the avatar better access to production and production capacities. This is manifested dependent on the design of the synthetic world and almost any item can be assigned a value. Castronova (2005) notes thus:

“The advancement system can be used to induce a player’s emotional investment in all kinds of actions. It can endow seemingly trivial and inconsequential acts—the slaying of a digital dragon—with significant personal and social consequences. Prestige shifts; alliances change; power and wealth flow in new channels; and, most important of all, people feel happier. In the historical record of MMORPGs, the willingness of people to acquire vast storehouses of truly arcane knowledge (the casting times of hundreds of spells; the order of birth of various gods; the number of iron ingots required to make a medium-quality dwarven hammer) has been demonstrated over and over. Advancement mechanisms turn the synthetic world into a place where value can be assigned to anything, and behaviour directed accordingly. ”

The emotional investment that Castronova notes through the investment of virtual and real resources in advancement, is probed into by Williamson et al. (2010, in print). Williamson et al suggest through their hypothesis that immersion may take on two (central) functions -

that of a journey for the player to discover their 'true self', through a character constructed in role play as a space for role freedom, and
as a means of escapism.

On a superficial reading both hypotheses seem very similar, Williamson et al distinguishes these two features using an ethnographic approach. Players who engage in the first central element describe virtual worlds (refer Williamson et al 2010, in print) as a space where they can express which is otherwise socially constrained offline. To paraphrase a quoted comment, a player feels they can be anything they want in role-play whereas in real life they are who they are. Another player feels that their Avatar is similar to their real life but is capable of doing or being more (flirty, casual, and outgoing) than they are in their real lives. Williamson et al support their second hypotheses on immersion, namely as a means of escapism by using ethnographic studies. Players focus on the Virtual World as something to 'get away' from real life hassles, largely all comments that Williamson et al notes are positive, as such there is no indication if there were any connotations of addiction involved with immersion. Not an avoidance of real life situations but more in terms of relaxation, rest, a break and so forth. In fact Williamson et al seem to be moving away from such connotations by making this remark. Although I do not want to address questions of addictions and violence arising out of excessive gaming, these arise out of some of the discourses I point out. More can be found in the works of Florence Chee. The article in particular can be accessed on her page. Henry Jenkins and his stand on immersion has been addressed in an earlier blog post and would be relevant when addressing immersion in role play (and RPGs) in offline games.

The Segregation of Production - Reading Nakamura and Racial Production

Lisa Nakamura provides an insight into reading racial stereotypes in virtual worlds and posits that subjects carefully avoid real world racism, and racial references shifts into narratives of racial warfare in the imaginary world. Nakamura problematizes the informationalized capitalism that constructs Asian players as informational labourers and outsiders to the aesthetic integrity of the world of warcraft that the beauty of the game has somehow been polluted or tarnished by third world and fourth world informational labourers.

Nakamura addresses the informational dispossession of fourth world workers and gold farmers in particular and the real world racism that is inherently present in the caricaturisation that follows informational labour. She compares Consalvo and Castronova to discuss racialization, among other social evils, which as far as Castronova (2005) describes is ideally exempt from virtual worlds.

A strong focus on racialization in the real world being imported into virtual spaces and the connotations that accompany farming or for that matter how race becomes a derogatory insult in communities that have farming cultures is present. This takes the form of (almost) imagined racial warfare in virtual worlds and Nakamura attempts to locate this in light of Chinese (and Korean) informational labour and gold farming. The derogatory connotations associated with Chinese (and Korean) players as stereotypical farmers, and thus contaminated where the aesthetic integrity of MMO worlds are concerned (Nakamura substantiates using Consalvo, p. 6). Gold farming except for legally accepted modes are considered as cheating. Consalvo points out that cheating need not be approached as a flaw or weakness in the game design that is exploited or circumvented by players, rather cheating is an inherent part of gaming culture and is a necessary element that contributes to sustained immersion.

One problem would be the actual produsage of virtual goods that are dependent on racial factors that often separate production and consumption. This form of segregation of production on racial and accumulated avatarial terms would lead to a more nuanced reading of production on racial factors. Produsage is a term recently used in the New Media and Culture Journal to locate the production and simultaneous consumption on the Internet in the larger picture. In the virtual world produsage can stand for the production and consumption patterns of virtual worlds – a detailed report on the same has been recently published by the Advanced Virtual Economy Applications Project in conjunction with the Helsinki Institute of Information and Technology.

Is produsage similar to prosumption, the convergence of production and consumption in social media? Whereas produsage is limited to examining the dissemination of content and the engagement with creative, collaborative, and often adhoc content, prosumption is more applicable in the virality of that content through the networks that it flows through. I would interpret the former as being form and style specific and the latter architecturally informed in that the structures of technology through which content flows rather than the form of the content is given more weightage.

An examination of avatarial capital and its influences on racial production leads to the flows of attention that influence production processes. Influencing production in a systematic manner, attention as a currency dictates the prosumption of virtual goods. The AVEA report notes MMORPGs as the first genre in RMT (Real money trades). Although the AVEA reports literature focuses on 'Game Time' investments in grinding, mining, and farming – repetitive tasks that produce avatarial material and non material capital. A distinction should be made that the Game economy is not dependent on time factors alone, such that the investments of virtual and real money does not always translate into time spent in the acts of virtual production. Attention often mediates this process, such that the flow of attention would effectively enhance a player of low net worth (materially) and disenfranchise players who have invested time, effort, and money in the game and have a higher net worth in material functions. Virtual material wealth and non material wealth plays very little role in the enhancement and disenfranchisement of players and their respective investments in the virtual worlds. This is not to suggest that this is a common norm, production inevitably draws attentional capital in the automated ranking and listings that showcase this 'achievement', which also results in contest and conquest over command on virtual commodities. The AVEA report and works by Lehdonvirta (Ville) and Hamari (Juho) interpret the achievement hierarchy that those who have worked, deserve the fruit of their labour.

Avatar rights53 and the Declaration of the rights of avatars are tied into the concepts of this achievement hierarchies that Hamari and Lehdonvirta uses and their materialization, if you will, in real value. Production and time are classically linked through labour and effort and to import that reading into a virtual space devoid of certain nuanced reformulations would be regressive. This is reflected in the AVEA report findings, although their trajectories are ideologically motivated. To posit that early MMORPGs had an achievement structure through which players steadily climbed the backbone of social and economic structure destabilized by the emergence of secondary markets is highly problematic. Firstly for it locates an evolutionary trajectory, the idyll (almost echoing of a Christian pre-lapsarian) state followed by the fall, so to speak, or destabilisation of the idyllic aesthetic beauty and 'integrity' by secondary markets or gold farming markets and resellers – Nakamura (2009) reiterates this perceived violation of 'western' aesthetics by eastern guest works and informational labourers. Secondly it locates all investments as a simple matter of time investment (which flows in either/both way), and to locate the connections between real and virtual currencies as simple matters of produsage or prosumption linked to time (whichever term seems more appropriate, i.e., depending on the form of content or the structure that enables its flow – naturally please read content also as virtual content, digital content, and so forth inclusive of virtual goods and services) is limiting and problematic. The problematics are not the input of time and effort but the flow of attention that dictates most gameplay formation54 and strategy in any game that has a massive environment with a PvP structure. In intense-PvP-character focused MMORPGs such as Eternal Duel the avatarial capital are a) different parameters central to role play and character development and b) dependent on racial choices that allow for different progression pathways.

Nakamura notes that “China-men” are often equated with NPCs or non-player characters whose only role in the game is either grinding, or providing information and equipment. Grinding is a repetitive task, largely of killing monsters again and again to gain items, currencies, and experience in-game. By equating NPCs and Chinese players together, PvP attacks becomes nothing more than 'taking a stroll in the wilderness' and attacking 'monsters'. People who are profiled as Asian, either through their avatars or through their actions, mannerisms, associations and so forth (earlier I made an argument on in-group and out-group associations that facilitated certain forms of attentional capital flows, note that both negative and positive flows are possible). Such profiling along with informational labour dehumanizes the subjects as mere characters in a racial war. I posit that outworld racism, racist tendencies, and remarks such as that noted above and documented by Nakamura becomes only one half of racial production and game play in virtual worlds. Most fantasy genres are built on concepts of warfare with often racial connotations, such that survival, quest progression, and the accumulation of avatarial capital depends on the imaginary, constructed, and designed racial warfare in virtual worlds. All MMORPGs have some element of conflict, warfare which is often a part of design. Survival is not just a matter of survival in harsh game environment but also from other avatars. Survival also depends on the ability of the avatar to exercise command over other goods and services within the virtual world.

This ability to command better resources in the virtual world dictates the survival of the avatar and in cases of warfare (constant struggle is an element of MMORPGs and warfare is the eventual representation of that struggle) the more virtual goods that an avatar commands, the better its chances of survival. Although a commentary of Nakamura's text, an attempt is made to locate instances where attentional capital and its accumulation need not necessarily assist survival in the game.

Racial production or what I would posit as the production of virtual goods dependent on race in MMO Fantasy RPGs is dependent on the attentional shifts that are regulated by the games own internal market ranking systems. What the AVEA project report terms as the achievement hierarchies, for the hierarchy or ranking is not singular but varied and distributed across multiple aspects of development in a game. These hierarchies also facilitate shifts in attentional capital and its flows (other than self representation through profiles and avatars) and locate racial characteristics of an avatar and achievement hierarchies linked to race. For instance, ED ranks players based o their race choices, for all six races in the game with race trophies being awarded to the first three in the list. The trophies are much sought after for the bonus-benefits that they provide. This leads to a form of racial warfare, within the races - for the race trophy, and outside the races for higher achievement ranking. Quests which require the collection of one soul from each race for access to higher capability weapons have players in a constant state of warfare. Attentional capital here dictates the production, often racial production in that the high level weapons, armour, and other virtual goods that are produced are race specific. Often players tend to speculate and buy race weapons only to resell in the internal market after making enhancements to it, even though the weapon or armour itself is quite useless in terms of race compatibility. A look at the top seven race weapon internal market listings in ED and comparison with the players character profiles and race choice will show that four out of seven players have listed weapons they cannot use or equip. Race armour and other weapons have similar statistics in the internal markets in that most are not items of use by players but for speculation general compatibility armour on the other hand has very few players investing in major enhancements. Their efforts at producing these weapons and enhancing them is to speculate on the market and on possible players who will need them as they progress to level 300, and thus make a considerable profit by selling it, or renting it out through an in-game contract system.

In conclusion I also introduce the concept of class production and game world race production of virtual goods and items, such that character race plays a relevant part in imagined racial warfare but not so much in the production of virtual goods, which is driven by market demand and supply. Attentional capital and avatarial capital plays pivotal roles in the systems of production and I have made an attempt to locate them from different perspectives. I posit that attentional capital flows through the self representation in profiles and the ingroup and outgroup identitification along with associations to race, class, and identity which are not necessarily outworld alone. As Nakamura (2009) notes there are no real world races in virtual worlds but the image of the farmer has been associated with real world Chinese and Korean players such that it forms a basic dichotomy between leisure players and worker players, worker players who are dehumanized subjects similar to non player characters run by the artificial intelligence of the game. Attentional currency through many of these perspectives performs the role of a currency that facilitates or enables further progress and survival. Trading in race weapons and armour and virtual goods, that are of no other interest to the game character than pure profit, assists the collection and expansion of other forms of material and non material avatarial capital.

References

AVEA Project Report. (2010). The Advanced Virtual Economy Applications Project, Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, Accessed June 12th 2010. <http://virtual-economy.org/files/AVEA%20Project%20Final%20Report%208%20June%202010.pdf>.
Castronova, E. (2003). On Virtual Economies, in Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research. Vol 3. Issue 2.
Castronova, E. (2005). Synthetic worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Castronova, E., James J. Cummings, Will Emigh, Michael Fatten, Nathan Mishler, Travis Ross and Will Ryan. (2007). What is a Synthetic World? In Space Time Play Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level. Birkhäuser Basel (p. 174–177).
Castronova, E., Dmitri Williams, Cuihua Shen, Rabindra Ratan, Li Xiong, Yun
Huang, and Brian Keegan. (2009). As real as real? Macroeconomic Behavior in a Large-scale Virtual World. New Media & Society. 11. 685. Accessed 22 April 2010. <http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/5/685>.
Consalvo, M. (2007). Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Video Games. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Cooper, R. (2007). Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators. London: Chris Boot.
Dibbell, J. (2006). Play Money. New York: Basic Books.
Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2000). Getting the attention you need. Harvard Business Review, 78(5), pp. 118-126.
Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The attention economy: Understanding the new currency of businesses. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Goldhaber, M. (1997). The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net.
Hamari, J., and V. Lehdonvirta. (2010). Game Design as Marketing: How Game Mechanics Create Demand for Virtual Goods, in Journal of Business Science and Applied Management. Vol 5. Issue 1. Accessed 21 May 2010.
Lehdonvirta, V. (2005) Real-Money Trade of Virtual Assets: Ten Different User Perceptions. In: Proceedings of Digital Arts and Culture (DAC 2005), 52-58. IT University of Copenhagen: Copenhagen.
Lehdonvirta, V. (2007) MMORPG RMT and sumptuary laws. Virtual Economy Research Network. <http://virtual-economy.org/blog/ mmorpg_rmt_and_sumptuary_laws>.
Lomas, D. (2008). Attentional Capital and the Ecology of Online Social Networks. In M. Tovey (Ed.), Collective Intelligence, (pp 163-172) Oakton: EIN Press.
Nakamura, L. (2009). Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft, in Critical Studies in Media Communication. Vol 26. Issue 2. Accessed 12 Feb. 2010 <http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/15295030902860252 >.
Simon, H. A. (1971). Designing organizations for an information-rich world. In M. Greenberger (Ed.), Computers, communications and the public interest (pp.40-41). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
Williams, D., T. Kennedy & R. Moore (2010, in press). Behind the Avatar: The Patterns, Practices and Functions of Role Playing in MMOs. Games & Culture.

The Virtual Worlds Research Project {VWRP} has conducted extensive studies and workshops on defining virtual worlds – three main prominent characteristics of which are depiction, space and analogic – for more please refer their report published and freely available.
The Attention economy was first implied in the works of Simon H.A (1971) who focuses on the exchange of attention as a relevant factor in the information economy – that the resource that is made scarce is not information but attention expended in its consumption is one of the seminal points made by Simon H. A. The term although was popularized by the writings of Davenport and Beck 2000, 2001 and Goldhaber 1997, 2008. For more details for the “attention economy hypothesis in brief”.
Three kingdoms online is a merger of MMORPG and MMORTS with a focus on Real Time Strategy similar to Travian. World of Warcraft is a classical Role Playing Game Set in the Massive Environment where millions of players can join in a game – Which is what is termed an MMORPG. Eternal Duel and Rising Era are Text Based MMORPGs that have a smaller base and depends entirely on textual and not graphical representation.
Although similar to Peirre bourdieu's (Bourdieu and Passeron 1973) concept of human capital, it involves the examination of non material gains that are linked to an avatar, such as in-game experience, in-game knowledge and so forth.
Refer Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron "Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction" (1973).
The Virtual - Real Binary has been addressed in many disciplines in different capacities, concerning identity, presence, production, and labour. Here I skirt the actual binary but use it to lend credence to the virtual currency and by extention also the attention currency.
What Castronova would like to term as part of 'the exodus'.
Nakamura and Consalvo note this limitation in different manners and points to the realization of Castronova's speculative predictions.
Either browser- or client-based.
MUDs stands for Multi-user Domain.
The term graphical worlds may be misleading, I use the term to denote the visually superior worlds that Castronova seems to imply as Synthetic Worlds, his main case study being Sony's EverQuest. Doing this I also posit that text based virtual worlds are active economically, even if not as much as graphical worlds, and the term synthetic worlds can be expanded to include the text based genre as well.
As against NPCs or non player characters.
And thus subjective in nature.
By sustainable I suggest that immersion (emotional or otherwise) in the game world does not face massive disjuncts or breaks. A game that has a cohesive narrative architecture (please refer Jenkins works on narrative architectures) could be immersive.
The 'massive element' is used to locate some central points of departures between RPGs and MMORPGs, evolution being one of them.
Also defined as gold farming markets, there are some questionable problems is definitions due to legality, concepts of cheating and so forth. Mia Consalvo (2007) approaches cheating as part of gaming culture and admits that even EULAs do not sufficiently address what activities and circumventions maybe regarded as cheating and how exactly that affects some players. Some players have the ability to pay for farming services, but that does not necessarily mean its cheating, since he is still investing labour (through a process of outsourcing of that labour) into the game.
This term is not common, I use this term outworld synonymously with out-game, and as a antonym to in-game and inworld. The term implies activities within the game and its impact, influence, or some other variable that is outside of that game mostly in the real world. Thus, although technically, these terms are not synonymously cohesive - for the purposes here is used as such.
Although Castronova urges that there is an impact of synthetic economies on real world economies, I believe locating the attentional capital and its function as a currency within virtual worlds and its shifts and flows effected through real world stereotypes, uses, and affordances (as Castronova himself notes that there are very almost no virtual goods that do not have some form of real world categorization and uses and/or affordances), can be located through gold farming as a trade practice.
Can attentional capital also be read as linked to “all” non-material capital?
Presuming that they are obtained within the game and not through metagaming, Castronova does not examine metagaming in this manner except to locate gold farming practices that he terms as secondary market activities.
Considering that social and viral networks and their effects can be often hinted at but rarely predicted beforehand. Without sufficient avatar capital, there may be very little attentional capital and trades in attentional capital that ensure survival in any game. As such predicting outcomes based on possible attentional capital can be unproductive.
Depending on how communities and groups are organized in the game world. They could be limited to 60 as in Travian, or above 200 as in Eternal Duel, depending on certain circumstances membership is also often limited, a reason why attentional capital of high performing groups stay well above the threshold of survival. Almost all groups will have internal communications, IGM – In-Game Mailing/Messaging, internal or devised chat functionality – for instance Travian has a server chat that accommodates players of the clan but is rarely used, Skype is preferred and if not Gtalk and Msn is preferred means of communication and strategizing as well. This is noticeable in International .com servers and the English .in servers, as for other servers this may not hold true. Eternal Duel also has chat functionality but is not clan specific. Both games have their own internal forums for the clan pages as well as game support forums internationally and regionally.
Also termed Metaverse where factors external to the game influence the game – practices that are termed as metagaming.
Although at this juncture Bots and their usage should be explored, it might derail the argument on attentional capital flows. Automated programs are forms of circumventions that are often banned in the TOS and EULA of the game, but still used by many players. Multihunters or staff of the game working specifically on detecting circumvention arose out of modding and circumvention. Consalvo explores cheating to a fair amount and places cheating as a part of game culture, such that it allows players who are stuck at certain points to bypass the narrative requirement to complete a certain quest, do a certain activity and so forth. Therefore, she places cheating not so much as loopholes in design exploited by circumvention rather an essential part of a game in its ability to maintain, or sustain immersion.
Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy is a subdivision of games that focus on Empire building in a persistant or resetting massive environment.
Technologies that facilitate communication and interaction are necessary for any forms of trade and activity to develop online. An ingame messaging system, a contract system, in-game chat functionality make up for synergized communities that can strategize better in such games.
This ranking range depends entirely on the server and the number of people playing the game. The range denotes the highest investors in the game, in terms of activity, presence, and production. These number ranges are applicable for the international .com travian servers. The numbers would be much lower compared to Indian or other regional servers. A report can be obtained on Travian World analyzer but is limited to server resets – every 300 days for normal servers. http://travian.ws/ - note that this is not the original travian site or in any manner supported by travian or their staff, but an external site that aggregates travian data for assistive gameplay.
Gathered from the Travian Forums and Strategy guides. The exact tools are numerous including user scripts and is not elaborated further.
Both are Chat and Instant Messaging Clients.
Policy here implies in-game production - From basics such as War and Peace to profit sharing, production sharing, resource collection for common growth and so forth.
Avatar capital is largely represented in the player profile page or in the in-game ranking system or external tools that pull data off the server to provide ranking and player search functionalities. One such case would be the extensive in-game ranking systems in Eternal Duel a text-based fantasy MMORPG, another instance would be Travian Servers which run on time bound resets and has extensive external tools to locate, plan, and strategize ideal locations, attack maneuvers, defense, farm finders and so forth. These systems act in the ways attention flows from particular activities that avatars undertake.
Attentional currency as the currency of survival is part of the paper currently in a draft version and will be linked on my personal blog when published.
Avatrial death naturally.
Castronova suggests that the term is more appropriate as it indicates an interconnected relationship that is not part of the real- virtual binary.
Quest lines would be particular pathways that a player character/avatar can choose for development depending on racial attributes experience points and so forth. For example, the Sway of the stars in a High eld RW1 (Race weapon 1) which is available after crossing a certain level (indicated by experience points gathered). Note that all of this is dependent on the virtual world and the design and plot of the world concerned. The example is taken from Eternal Duel.
Quest lines would be particular pathways that a player character/avatar can choose for development depending on racial attributes experience points and so forth. For example, the Sway of the stars in a High eld RW1 (Race weapon 1) which is available after crossing a certain level (indicated by experience points gathered). Note that all of this is dependent on the virtual world and the design and plot of the world concerned. The example is taken from Eternal Duel.
The game does not name the weapon as elvish, rather it is just termed as a high elf race weapon. The word Elvish is not particularly popular either for some reason.
Which are also virtual goods. In the paper macroeconomic behavior in large scale virtual worlds, the authors attempt to locate if the virtual 'sword' can be considered as having 'real' value.
or the Elven Race, one of the race choices when building a character. Race choices in character building has benefits including race weapons, race specific growth benefits and so forth, all of which are tied into the production of avatarial capital and indirectly attentional capital.
His study is on social networks, particularly Myspace.com, but can be used to read into attentional capital in gaming.
And hints at the reduction of identities into interests where self representation is concerned.
I would choose to expand this concept and make it broader so as to make it applicable to other social networks and is not limited to gaming.
Such as ethnic, cultural, racial, to form an in-group or out-group association, or through common cultural symbols and so forth as mentioned earlier.
I quote a recent debate with a few colleagues who suggested that I seem to suggest through my writing that the formation of these repositories are resultant of vague unintended actions on part of players and argued that the associations noticeable in the profiles of players are not always unintended but in most cases calculated and placed with deliberative intent. Without going into too much detail, I should clarify that that there might be the influence of the smart cow syndrome (for the lack of a better term for articulating this), where prominent groups have players who game for attention so as to be able to enter these groups (again I suggest that this would be a tactic for survival) failure to be associated with the group and other high level players often imply certain death (virtual avatar death that is). In such a case arguably there is deliberation and contemplation before networking or creating associations through profiles. For instance, a low level player would choose group A or group B – Z dependent on their position and the assumed allegiance and loyalty of the group portrayed through their own profile pages and thus their own repositories (yes this is illusory attention at work), and capabilities of the group to ensure survival of the player – this is deliberative. To return to my point there are often other messages and profile tags that the player uses to denote either strategy or tactics employed by the player and this I posit is unintended, a Gual character posting a Roman slogan on the profile, or some message indicative of strategy. So many troops killed in the first few weeks, so many players farmed and so forth, are unintended but assists in the inter-connection of these repositories perhaps a little more than group identities which are in constant flux (in worlds like travian from which this example is sourced).
assuming that it is non coercive and profitable.
Thus represented as A1 avatar on server 2 would be A2 and n number of servers to indicate A'n'.
For instance SARSteam on Travian interbational severs would be A1 and A2, and on ED servers would be A3 and so forth provided that avatar is linked or recognizable to SARSteam, or any of its members.
SARSteam is a prominent avatar of a player in Travian.
The authors Travian Avatar.
Travian servers reset after approx 300 days, where the endgame is the successful completion of a Wonder of the World.
A PNAP is a personal non aggression pact regardless of alliance affiliations, such that in the event that two players are in opposing and competitive alliances a PNAP would mean that either alliance would consider non aggression on the listed player regardless of alliance stand on other players. Applicable mostly unless in the event of war when PNAPs are suspended. The notion of the PNAP is similar to the NAPs forged between alliances, except its between a few players. Alone together phenomenon occurs to some extent in such cases.
Goldhaber (1997) places Illusory attention in perspective with that of a speaker and an audience. Through a reading of Lomas (2008) I posit that a similar situation is present in the self representation in player profiles.
Avatar rights are interesting concepts that question notions of property and copyrights and ownership.
By formation, I imply how game play progresses and forms dependent on attention flows towards a particular strategy in the game.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/attentional-capital-online-gaming

The AI Task Force Report - The first steps towards India’s AI framework

Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah — 2018-06-27T14:32:56Z

The Task Force on Artificial Intelligence was established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to leverage AI for economic benefits, and provide policy recommendations on the deployment of AI for India.

The blog post was edited by Swagam Dasgupta. Download PDF here

The Task Force’s Report, released on March 21st 2018, is a result of the combined expertise of members from different sectors and examines how AI will benefit India. It sheds light on the Task Force’s perception of AI, the sectors in which AI can be leveraged in India, the challenges endemic to India and certain ethical considerations. It concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the government to leverage AI for the next five years. While acknowledging AI as a social and economic problem solver, the Report attempts to answer three policy questions:

What are the areas where government should play a role?
How can AI improve quality of life and solve problems at scale for Indian citizens?
What are the sectors that can generate employment and growth by the use of AI technology?

This blog will look at how the Task Force answered these three policy questions. In doing so, it gives an overview of salient aspects and reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of the Report.

Sectors of Relevance and Challenges

In order to navigate the outlined questions, the Report looks at ten sectors that it refers to as ‘domains of relevance to India’. Furthermore, it examines the use of AI along with its major challenges, and possible solutions for each sector. These sectors include: Manufacturing, FinTech, Agriculture, Healthcare, Technology for the Differently-abled, National Security, Environment, Public Utility Services, Retail and Customer Relationship, and Education. While these ten domains are part of the 16 domains of focus listed in the AITF’s web page, it would have been useful to know the basis on which these sectors were identified. A particular strength of the identified sectors is the consideration of technology for the differently abled as well as the recognition to the development of AI systems in spoken and sign languages in the Indian context.

Some of the problems endemic to India that were recognized include infrastructural barriers, managing scale and innovation, and the collection, validation and distribution of data. The Task Force also noted the lack of consumer awareness, and inability of technology providers to explain benefits to end users as further challenges. The Task Force — by putting the onus on the individual — seems to hint that the impediment to the uptake of technology is the inability of individuals to understand the benefits of the technology, rather than aspects such as poor design, opacity, or misuse of data and insights. Furthermore, although the Report recognizes the challenges associated to data in India and highlights the importance of quality and quantity of data; it overlooks the importance of data curation in creatinge reliable AI systems.

Although the Report examines challenges to AI in each sector, it fails to include all challenges that require addressal. For example, the report fails to acknowledge challenges such as the lack of appropriate certification systems for AI driven health systems and technologies. In the manufacturing sector, the Report fails to highlight contextual challenges associated with the use of AI. This includes the deployment of autonomous vehicles compared to the use of industrial robots.

On the use of AI in retail, the Report while examining consumer data and its respective regulatory policies, identified the issues to be related to the definition, discrimination, data breaches, digital products and safety awareness and reporting standards. In this, the Report is limited in its understanding of what categories of data can lead to discrimination and restricts mechanisms for transparency and accountability to data breaches. The Report could have also been more forward looking in its position on security — including security by design and security by default. Furthermore, these issues were noted only in the context of the retail sector and ideally should have been discussed across all sectors.

The challenges for utilizing AI for national security could have been examined beyond cost and capacity to include associated ethical and legal challenges such as the need for legal backing. The use of AI in national security demands clear accountability and oversight as it is a ground for legitimate state interference with fundamental rights such as privacy and freedom of expression. As such, there is a need for human rights impact assessments, as well as a need for such uses to be aligned with international human rights norms. Government initiatives that allow country wide surveillance and AI decisions based on such data should ideally be implemented only after a comprehensive privacy law is in place and India’s surveillance regime has been revisited.

Recognizing the potential of AI for the benefit of the differently abled is one of the key takeaways from this section of the Report. Furthermore, it also brings in the need for AI inclusivity. AI in natural language generation and translation systems have the potential to help the large number of youth that are disabled or deprived. Therefore, AI could have a large positive impact through inclusive growth and empowerment.

Although the Report examines each of the ten domains in an attempt to provide an insight into the role the government can play, there seems to be a lack of clarity in terms of the role that each department will and is playing with respect to AI. Even the section which lays down the relevant ministries for each of the ten domains failed to include key ministries and departments. For example, the Report does not identify the Ministry of Education, nor does it list the Ministry of Law for national security. The Report could have also identified government departments which would be responsible for regulation and standardization. This could include the Medical Council of India (healthcare), CII (manufacture and retail), RBI (Fintech) etc. The Report also does not recognize other developments around AI emerging out the government. For example, the Draft National Digital Communications Policy (published on May 1, 2018) seeks to empower the Department of Telecommunication to provide a roadmap for AI and robotics. Along similar lines, the Department of Defence Production has also created a task force earlier this year to study the use of AI to accelerate military technology and economic growth. The government should look at building a cohesive AI government body, or clearly delineating the role of each ministry, in order to ensure harmonization going forward.

Areas in need of Government Intervention

The Report also lists out the grand challenges where government intervention is required. This includes data collection and management and the need for widespread expertise contributing to research, innovation, and response. However, while highlighting the need for AI experts from diverse backgrounds, it fails to include experts from law and policy into the discussion. While identifying manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare and public utility to be places where government intervention is needed, the Report failed to examine national security beyond an important domain to India and as a sector where government intervention is needed.

Participation in International Forums

Another relevant concern that the Report underscores is India’s scarce participation as researchers, AI developers and government engagement in global discussions around AI. The Report states that although efforts were being made by Indian universities to increase their presence in international AI conferences, they were lagging behind other nations. On the subject of participation by the government it recommends regular presence in International AI policy forums. Hence, emphasising the need for India’s active participation in global conversations around AI and international rulemaking.

Key Enablers to AI

The Report while analysing the key enablers for AI deployment in India states that positive societal attitudes will be the driving force behind the proliferation of AI. Although relying on positive social attitudes alone will not help in increasing the trust on AI, steps such as making algorithms that are used by public bodies public, enacting a data protection law etc. will be important in enabling trust beyond highlighting success stories.

Data and Data Marketplaces

While the Report identifies data as a challenge where government intervention is needed, it also points to the Aadhaar ecosystem as an enabler. It states that Aadhaar will help in the proliferation of AI in three ways: one as a creator of jobs as related to the collection and digitization of data, two as a collector of reliable data, and three as a repository of Indian data. However, since the very constitutionality of Aadhaar is yet to be determined by the Supreme Court, the task force should have used caution in identifying Aadhaar as a definitive solution. Especially while making statements that the Aadhaar along with the SC judgement has created adequate frameworks to protect consumer data. Additionally, the Task Force should have recognized the various concerns that have been voiced about Aadhaar, particularly in the context of the case before the Supreme Court.

This section also proposes the creation of a Digital Data Marketplace. A data marketplace needs to be framed carefully so as to not create a situation where privacy becomes a right available to only those who can afford it. It is concerning that the discussion on data protection and privacy in the Report is limited to policies and guidelines for businesses and not centered around the individual.

Innovation and Patents

The Report states that the Indian startups working in the field of AI must be encouraged, and industry collaborations and funding must be taken up as a policy measure. One of the ways in which this could be achieved is by encouraging innovations, and one of the ways to do so is by adding a commercial incentive to it, such as through IP rights. Although the Report calls for a stronger IP regime that protects and incentivises innovation, it remains ambiguous as to which aspect of IP rights — patents, trade secrets and copyrights — need significant changes. If the Report is specifically advocating for stronger patent rights in order to match those of China and US, then it shows that the the task force fails to understand the finer aspects of Indian patent law and the history behind India’s stance on patenting. This includes the fact that Indian patent law excludes algorithms from being patented. Indian patent law, by providing a higher threshold for patenting computer related inventions (CRIs), ensures that only truly innovative patents are granted. Given the controversies over CRIs that have dotted the Indian patent landscape, the task force would have done well to provide more clarity on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of patenting in this sector, if that is their intent with this suggestion.

Ethical AI framework

Responsible AI

In terms of establishing an ethical AI framework, the Task Force suggests measures such as making AI explainable, transparent, and auditable for biases. The Report addresses the fact that currently with the increase in human and AI interaction there is a need to have new standards set for the deployment of AI as well as industrial standards for robots. However, the Report does not go into details of how AI could cause further bias based on various identifiers such as gender and caste, as well as the myriad concerns around privacy and security. This is especially a concern given that the Report envisions widespread use of AI in all major sectors. In this way, the Report looks at data as both a challenge and an enabler, but fails to dedicate time towards explaining the various ethical considerations behind the collection and use of data in the context of privacy, security and surveillance as well as account for unintended consequences. In laying out the ethical considerations associated with AI, the report does not make a distinction between the use of AI by the public sector and private sector. As the government is responsible for ensuring the rights of citizens and holds more power than the citizenry, the public sector needs to be more accountable in their use of AI. This is especially so in cases where AI is proposed to be used for sovereign functions such as national security.

Privacy and Data

The Report also recognises the significance of the implementation of the Aadhaar Act, the privacy judgement and the proposed data protection laws, on the development and use of AI for India. Yet, the Report does not seem to recognize the importance of a robust and multi-faceted privacy framework as it assumes that the Aadhaar Act and the Supreme Court Judgement on privacy and potential privacy law have already created a basis for safe and secure utilization and sharing of customer data. Although the Report has tried to be an expansive examination of various aspects of AI for India, it unfortunately has not looked in depth at the current issues and debates around AI privacy and ethics and makes policy recommendations without appearing to fully reflect on the implementation and potential impact of the same. Similar to the discussion paper by the Niti Aayog, this Report does not consider the emerging principles of data protection such as right to explanation and right to opt-out of automated processing, which directly relate to AI. Furthermore, there is a lack of discussion on issues such as data minimisation and purpose limitation which some big data and AI proponents argue against.

Liability

On the question of liability, the Report only states that specific liability mechanisms need to be worked out for certain categories of machines. The Report does not address the questions of liability that should be applicable to all AI systems, and on whom the duty of care lies, not only in case of robots but also in the case of automated decision making etc. Thus, there is a need for further thinking on mechanisms for determining liability and how these could apply to different types of AI (deep learning models and other machine learning models) and AI systems.

AI and Employment

On the topic of jobs and employment, the Report states that AI will create more jobs than it takes as a result of an increase in the number of companies and avenues created by AI technologies. Additionally, the Report provides examples of jobs where AI could replace the human (autonomous drivers, industrial robots etc,) but does not go as far as envisioning what jobs could be created directly from this replacement. Though the Report recognizes emerging forms of work such as crowdsourcing platforms like Mturk, it fails to examine the impact of such models of work on workers and traditional labour market structures and processes. Going forward, it will be important that the government and the private sector undertake the necessary steps to ensure that fair, protected, and fulfilling jobs are created simultaneously with the adoption of AI. This will include revisiting national and organizational skilling programmes, labor laws, social benefit schemes, relevant economic policies, and exploring best practices with respect to the adoption and integration of AI in work.

Education and Re-skilling

The task force emphasised the need for a change in the education curriculum as well as the need to reskill the labour force to ensure an AI ready future. This level of reskilling will be a massive effort, and a thorough review and audit of existing skilling programmes in India is needed before new skilling programmes are established and financed. The Report also clarifies that the statistics used were based on a study on the IT component of the industry, and that a similar study was required to analyse AI’s effect on the automation component. Going forward, there is the need for a comprehensive study of the labour intensive sectors and formal and informal sectors to develop evidence based policy responses.

Policy Recommendations

The Task Force_, in its policy recommendations, notes that the successful adoption of AI in India will depend on three factors: people, process and technology. However, it does not explain these three factors any further.

National Artificial Intelligence Mission

The most significant suggestion made in the Report is for the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence Mission (N-AIM) — a centralised nodal agency for coordinating and facilitating research, collaboration and providing economic impetuous to AI startups. The mission with a budget allocation of Rs 1,200 crore over five years aims, among other things, to look at various ways to encourage AI research and deployment. Some of the suggestions include targeting and prototyping AI systems and setting up of a generic AI test bed. These suggestions seems to draw inspiration from other countries such as the US DARPA Challenge and Japan’s sandbox for self driving trucks. The establishment of N-AIM is a welcome step to encourage both AI research and development on a national scale. The availability of public funds will encourage more AI research and development.Additionally, government engagement in AI projects has thus far been fragmentedand a centralised body will presumably bring about better coordination and harmonization. Some of the initiatives such as Capture the flag competition that seeks to centre around the provision for real datasets to catalyze innovation will need to be implemented with appropriate safeguards in place.

Other recommendations

There are other suggestions that are problematic — particularly that of funding “an inter-disciplinary large data integration center in pilot mode to develop an autonomous AI Machine that can work on multiple data streams in real time and provide relevant information and predictions to public across all domains.” Before such a project is developed and implemented there are a number of factors where legal clarity is required; a few being: data collection and use, accuracy and quality of the AI system. There is also a need to ensure that bias and discrimination have been accounted for and fairness, responsibility and liability have been defined with consideration that this will be a government driven AI system. Additionally, such systems should be transparent by design and should include redress mechanisms for potential harms that may arise. This can be through the presence of a human in the loop, or the existence of a kill switch. These should be addressed through ethical principles, standards, and regulatory frameworks.

The recommendations propose establishing operation standards for data storage and privacy, communication standards for autonomous systems, and standards to allow for interoperability between AI based systems. A significant lacuna in this list is the development of safety, accuracy, and quality standards for AI algorithms and systems.

Similarly, although the proposed public private partnership model for research and startups is a good idea, this initiative should be undertaken only after questions such as the implications of liability, ownership of IP and data, and the exclusion of critical sectors are thought through.

Furthermore, the suggestion to ‘fund a national level survey on identification of cluster of clean annotated data necessary for building effective AI systems’ needs to recognize the existing initiatives around open data or use this as a starting place. The Report does not clarify if this survey would involve identifying data.

Conclusion

The inconspicuous release of the Report as well as the lack of a call for public comments results in the fact that the Report does not incorporate or reflect on the sentiments of the public or draw upon the expertise that exists in India on the topic or policies around emerging technologies, which will have a pervasive and wide effect on society. The need for multi stakeholder engagement and input cannot be understated. Nonetheless, the Report of the Task Force is a welcome step towards understanding the movement towards an definitive AI policy. The task force has attempted answering the three policy questions keeping people, process and technology in mind. However, it could have provided greater details about these indices. The Report, which is meant for a wider audience, would have done well to provide greater detail, while also providing clarity on technical terms. On a definitional plane, a list of technologies that the task force perceived as AI for this Report, could have also helped keep it grounded on possible and plausible 5 year recommendations.

Compared to the recent Niti Aayog Discussion Paper, this Report misses out on a detailed explanation on AI and ethics, however, it does spend some considerable amount of time on education and the use of AI for the differently abled. Additionally, the Report’s statement on the democratization of development and equal access as well as assigning ownership and framing transparent rules for usage of the infrastructure is a positive step towards making AI inclusive. Overall, the Report is a progressive step towards laying down India’s path forward in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The emphasis on India’s involvement in International rulemaking gives India an opportunity to be a leader of best practice in international forums by adopting forward looking and human rights respecting practices. Whether India will also become a strong contender in the AI race, with policies favouring the development of a socio-economically beneficial, and ethical-AI backed industries and services is yet to be seen.

The Task Force consists of 18 members in total. Of these, 11 members are from the field of AI technology both research and industry, three from the civil services, one from healthcare research, one with and Intellectual property law background, and two from a finance background. The specializations of the members are not limited to one area as the members have experience or education in various areas relevant to AI. https://www.aitf.org.in// There is a notable lack of members from Civil Society. It may also be noted that only 2 of the 18 members are women

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 1,http://dipp.nic.in/sites/default/files/Report_of_Task_Force_on_ArtificialIntelligence_20March2018_2.pdf

ibid.

The Artificial Intelligence Task Force https://www.aitf.org.in/

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 8

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 9,10.

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 9

ibid.

Artificial Intelligence in the Healthcare Industry in India https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/ai-and-healtchare-report

Artificial Intelligence in the Manufacturing and Services Sector https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/AIManufacturingandServices_Report _02.pdf

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 21.

Submission to the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India, Centre for Internet and Society https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/data-protection-submission

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 22

Draft National Digital Communications Policy-2018, http://www.dot.gov.in/relatedlinks/draft-national-digital-communications-policy-2018

Task force set up to study AI application in military,https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/task-force-set-up-to-study-ai-application-in-military-5049568/

It is not just technical experts that are needed, ethical, technical, and legal experts as well as domain experts need to be part of the decision making process.

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 31

Constitutional validity of Aadhaar: the arguments in Supreme Court so far, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/constitutional-validity-of-aadhaar-the-arguments-in-supreme-court-so-far/article22752084.ece

ibid.

CIS Submission to TRAI Consultation on Free Data http://trai.gov.in/Comments_FreeData/Companies_n_Organizations/Center_For_Internet_and_Society.pdf

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 30

Section 3(k) of the patent act describes that a mere mathematical or business method or a computer programme or algorithm cannot be patented.

Patent Office Reboots CRI Guidelines Yet Again: Removes “novel hardware” Requirement

https://spicyip.com/2017/07/patent-office-reboots-cri-guidelines-yet-again-removes-novel-hardware-requirement.html

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 37

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 7

ibid.

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 8

National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence: http://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/NationalStrategy-for-AI-Discussion-Paper.pdf

Meaningful information and the right to explanation,Andrew D Selbst Julia Powles, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 7, Issue 4, 1 November 2017, Pages 233–242

The Principle of Purpose Limitation and Big Data, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319467399_The_Principle_of_Purpose_Limitation_and_Big_Data

M-Turk https://www.mturk.com/

For example a lesser threshold of minimum wages, no job secuirity etc, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guilty-planet/httpblogsscientificamericancomguilty-planet20110707the-pros-cons-of-amazon-mechanical-turk-for-scientific-surveys/

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 41

Report of Artificial Intelligence Task Force Pg, 46, 47

ibid.

The DARPAChallenge https://www.darpa.mil/program/darpa-robotics-challenge

Japan may set regulatory sandboxes to test drones and self driving vehicles http://techwireasia.com/2017/10/japan-may-set-regulatory-sandboxes-test-drones-self-driving-vehicles/

Mariana Mazzucato in her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, argued that it was the government that drives technological innovation. In her book she stated that high-risk discovery and development were made possible by government spending, which the private enterprises capitalised once the difficult work was done.

https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/govt-of-karnataka-launches-centre-of-excellence-for-data-science-and-artificial-intelligence/61689977,https://analyticsindiamag.com/amaravati-world-centre-for-ai-data/

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 47

Report of Artificial Intelligence Task Force Pg. 49

The Report on the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, Pg. 47

The AI task force website has a provision for public comments although it is only for the vision and mission and the domains mentioned in the website.

National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence: http://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/NationalStrategy-for-AI-Discussion-Paper.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-ai-task-force-report-the-first-steps-towards-indias-ai-framework

AI Task Force Report

Admin — 2018-06-27T14:22:11Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/ai-task-force-report.pdf

Comments to The PDP Bill 2019

akash — 2020-02-12T11:52:11Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-to-the-pdp-bill-2019

Response to Suggestions and Comments Sent on GIGW by Committee Members

Admin — 2017-11-26T06:55:12Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/files/response-to-suggestions-and-comments-sent-on-gigw-by-committee-members

Identifying Aspects of Privacy in Islamic Law

Vidushi Marda and Bhairav Acharya — 2015-01-01T14:04:44Z

This white paper seeks to identify aspects of privacy in Islamic Law and demonstrate that the notion of privacy was recognized and protected in traditional Islamic law.

I. Introduction

The nuances of privacy have been deliberated by numerous scholars till date, without arriving at a definite answer. It has been perceived as a right to be left alone, as mere secrecy, as the right to a legitimate area of seclusion and solitude. Privacy is a particularly nebulous concept, with a tendency of resting on intuitionist arguments. However, finding refuge in intuitionist arguments has not lent to a clear understanding of the term itself. This presents a peculiar predicament; while privacy is demanded, nobody seems to have a clear understanding of what it truly means. Daniel Solove opines that privacy is a concept in disarray, it is about everything and hence it seems to be about nothing. Solove finds agreement in a variety of literature, where privacy has been described as a "chameleon-like word", a term suffering from an "embarrassment of meanings", a "powerful rhetorical battle cry".

Traditional notions such as bodily privacy, privacy within one's home, or privacy resulting out of private property are received with far less scepticism than more recent aspects of privacy. With the burgeoning increase in information exchange, the ambit of privacy concerns is widened but not always understood. While earlier notions of privacy confined themselves to physical intrusions, it is now possible to invade a person's privacy without physically intruding on their space. As capabilities to intrude on privacy increase, the demand for respecting privacy grows stronger. In their historic article, Warren and Brandeis referred to privacy as an incorporeal notion, referring to cases of defamation, proprietary harms, contractual harms, breach of confidence to conclude that all such cases belonged to an umbrella principle of the right to privacy.

I.II Aspects of Privacy

William Prosser, a torts scholar, in 1860 attempted to classify privacy comprehensively. He contemplated four kinds of activities as impinging on a person's privacy. They were
1. Intrusion upon the plaintiff's seclusion or solitude, or into his private affairs.
2. Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts about the plaintiff.
3. Publicity which places the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye.
4. Appropriation, for the defendant's advantage, of the plaintiff's name or likeness.
While this classification lent some structure to the understanding of privacy, it restricted itself to only tort law.

A wider taxonomy was offered by Daniel Solove, imbibing concerns of digital privacy and information technology. Focussing on activities that invade privacy, Solove argued that information collection, aggregation of information, dissemination of such aggregated information and invasion into people's private affairs are the aspects integral to understanding the privacy concerns of a data subject.

In its policy paper on privacy in India, the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) recognised privacy issues in the context of e-commerce, transactional privacy, cyber crime, national security, and cross border data flows. Similarly the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in 2011 focussed on understanding privacy in the context of data protection and surveillance. Subsequently, in 2012, the Planning Commission of India set up the A.P. Shah Committee to look into issues of data protection. This Committee classified the dimensions of privacy into four main categories; interception and access, audio and video recording, access and use of personal identifiers, and bodily and genetic material.

The classification of privacy for the purpose of this paper is under the heads of bodily privacy, informational and communications privacy, and territorial and locational privacy. Bodily privacy stems from the notion of personal autonomy and inviolate personality. Battery, rape, voyeurism are all examples of the recognition of the need to protect the privacy of one's body. Communications and informational privacy refers to the protection of sensitive personal information, specific communications and private conversations. Interception of messages, spying, hacking or tapping phone lines are all activities that impinge on privacy under this head. India's ambitious biometric project, Aadhar, has brought to the fore concerns surrounding personal information. Territorial privacy is developed from the notion of private property, the tort of trespass being ample recognition of the same.

I.III Is India a Private Nation?

In October, 2010, the government published an approach paper for legislation on privacy. In explaining the need for privacy legislation in India, the paper states,

"India is not a particularly private nation. Personal information is often shared freely and without thinking twice. Public life is organized without much thought to safeguarding personal data. In fact, the public dissemination of personal information has over time, become a way of demonstrating the transparent functioning of the government."

The notion of privacy being a foreign construct carves the argument that legislation on privacy would mean subjecting India to an alien cultural value. However, this ignores the possibility of privacy being culturally subjective. Cultures have exhibited different measurements by which they measure public and private realms. This paper aims to demonstrate that while the word "privacy" does not find explicit reference in traditional Indian law, the essence of privacy as we understand it today has existed in traditional Indian culture, specifically Indian Islamic culture, pre-dating colonialism in India and modernity in India's legal system.

I.IV Displacement of traditional Indian Law

Contemporary Indian law functions within a rubric that was constructed after the "expropriation" of traditional law. India's colonial legacy rendered the displacement of traditional Indian law with a unified modern legal system abounding in European ideas of modernity and legal systems, leaving it is a state of "fractured modernity". Before the British rule, Indians were governed by their personal laws and these laws did not aim to unify the nation in ways that Western legal systems did.. The decision to establish a modern legal system stemmed from the desire to administer the law as a function of the state, which would have been impractical at best in the absence of a unified legal system.

Edward Said eloquently states that the colonial experience does not end when the last European flag comes down or when the last white policeman leaves. One cannot help but agree with Said, as the understanding of law in contemporary India is constructed on the principles of the English common law and on ideas of a modern legal system. While the word "privacy" does not arise in traditional law, this paper argues that the notions of privacy as we perceive it today did exist hitherto the modernization of India's legal system.

I.V Structure of the paper

While Part I has laid down the foundation of this paper and the arguments it endeavours to make, Part II explains the sources of Islamic law and attempts at locating privacy in them. It also explains certain pervasive concepts that will enhance an understanding of privacy in Islamic law. This paper restricts itself to Sunni Islamic law. Part III gives an indication of privacy rights in India's neighbouring Islamic countries (both predominantly Sunni), Pakistan and Bangladesh; and highlights the legal framework for privacy in these countries.

II. Privacy in Islamic Law

II.I Sources of Islamic Law

Before locating aspects of privacy in Islamic Law, an understanding of its structure and sources will be helpful. Islamic Law is composed of Shariah, and fiqh. Shariah indicates the path a faithful Muslim must undertake to attain guidance in the present world and deliverance to the next. Fiqh, the jurisprudence of Islam, refers to the rational understanding of Shariah and human reasoning to appreciate the practical implications of Islam. While Shariah is divine revelation, fiqh is the human inference of Shariah.

The principle tenet of Islam is unwavering obedience to the teachings of God. According to Muslim belief, the Quran is the divine communication from Allah to the Prophet of Islam. It is the foremost record of the word of God, and for this reason is considered the apex source of Islamic law. It is in the Quran that basic norms of Shariah are found, and it embodies the exact words of God as was revealed to the Prophet over a period of 23 years. Fiqh, or the understanding of Shariah, also finds its origins in the holy Quran.

The Sunnah or Prophetic traditions are the ingredients for the model behaviour of a Muslim as demonstrated by the Prophet. It is a "way, course, rule, mode, or manner, of acting or conduct of life." The Sunnah were compiled through the communications of Prophet Muhammad in the form of Hadiths which are communications, stories or conversations; and may be religious or secular; historical or recent. The narrators of the Hadith are known as "isnad" who convey the "matn" or the substance of the Prophet's actions or words as narrated through oral communications through the years. Due to its very nature, the accuracy of the Sunnah came under considerable scrutiny, with concerns as to its possible fabrication and dilution. However, with a well devised system of recording and verifying sources, the Sunnah accompanies the imperative source of Islamic law, the Quran.

The other sources of Islam are found in human reasoning, or ijtihad. Ijtihad assumes a variety of secondary sources such as analogical reasoning (Qiyas), unanimous consensus (Ijma), decisions in favour of public interest (isthihsan), and presumption of continuity (istishab).
Ijtihad entails a resilient effort; an exertion in interpreting the primary sources in order to understand Shariah, to infer the law which is not explicit or evident. The legitimacy of Ijma is found in the Prophetic tradition, which states that the followers of Islam would never agree on an error, and will never unite on misguidance.

The Quran and Sunnah lie at the pinnacle of Islamic jurisprudence and their authoritativeness lends a ready inference of legal principles derived from them. In exploring the concept of Privacy in Islamic Law, this paper will focus mainly on the material available in the Quran and Sunnah.

II.II The Public and Private in Islam

According to the doctrine of Shariah, every aspect of life is deemed to be private unless shown otherwise. The public sphere is that in which governmental authority operates, making it both transparent and open to scrutiny and observation. Since its inception, Islam has considered the idea of governance with reasonable scepticism, ascribing to the view that there is no concept of a human ruler beyond reproach. This perhaps gave impetus to the idea of a private sphere as one that is inhabited exclusively by an individual and the divine, excluding any interference of the State; except with permission from religious law. In Islamic belief, a pious individual had submitted himself to God, and not the worldly State. Hence, all aspects of his life will align with the tenets of Islamic law and in pursuance with the will of God. Any failure to perform religious duties on the part of a Muslim is beyond the scope of another; it is only a consideration between him and the divine. It is believed that the Prophet said, "Those, who acknowledge God in words, and not at heart, do not find fault with their fellow Muslims. The wrongdoing of those who do so become the subject of God's scrutiny, and when God looks into someone's wrongdoing then all shall be truly exposed" The individual is bestowed with complete freedom of action in the private sphere, subject only to the will of the divine. To govern another is wholly beyond the capacity of any individual, and this forms a pervasive theme in Islamic jurisprudence.

Islamic Law recognizes that it is inevitable for every society to impose certain requirements on individuals both by the law and by societal norms. In respect of a public domain, Islam prescribes an amalgam of requirements of a Muslim community and the teachings of Islam. While committing sins in private is beyond the scope of public or governmental scrutiny, committing a sin in public amounts to a crime, meriting worldly punishment.

Islamic law provides for an individual's obligations to the divine at all times, and to the state in matters within the public domain. This is the most striking difference between Islamic law and modern law, as the function of enforcement of the law and punishment are forfeited to the state in a modern legal system, by virtue of the social contract. However, in Islamic societies, the concept of social contract does not exist. Instead, an individual's obligations lie to the state only if acts meriting worldly punishment occur in the public sphere. It is this distinction in the obligations of individuals that leads to conflicts between the application of Islamic law and modern law.

The Quran is replete with rules for all believers to ordain good and forbid evil (al-amrbi al-Ma'rufwa al-nahy 'an al-munkar'). This divine injunction is a restriction of freedom in the private sphere. The notion of privacy in the public sphere was tested through the office of the muhtasib, or compliance officer. These officers were appointed to ensure that the quality of life is preserved in Islamic societies. Personal or private matters which were visible in the public realm were liable to scrutiny from the muhtasib as well. However, this does not extend to matters such as surveillance and spying even on the authority of the state. The Prophet, according to the hadith of Amir Mu'awiyah remarked, " If you try to find out the secrets of the people, then you will definitely spoil them or at least you will bring them to the verge of ruin." In fact, modern jurists admonish the idea of surveillance as "exactly what Islam has called as the root cause of mischief in politics."

II.III. Privacy in Islamic Law

Bodily Privacy

The sanctity of one's bodily privacy is well recognised in Islamic Law. The Quran (24:58) demarcates certain periods in a day which are times of privacy for an individual, and indicates the need for prior permission before one may enter the private sphere of another. These periods are before the prayer at dawn, during the afternoon where one rests, and after the night prayer. This verse also calls upon children who have not yet reached the age of puberty to get accustomed to asking for permission before entering rooms apart from their own.

As far as bodily seizure of individuals accused of crimes goes, the Traditions indicate a general disinclination towards pre-adjudication restraint of individuals. The very occurrence of it appears to be a cause of discomfort as recorded in the Traditions. One of the Prophet's closest companions, Umar, is believed to have encourages officials to speed up adjudication processes so that the accused could not be deprived of the comfort of their homes and families.

bodily privacy and modesty

Although the Quran stipulates gender equality, the norms of bodily privacy and modesty applicable to men are far less rigorous than the rules of modesty that apply to women. While staring is not contemplated as a crime in modern jurisdictions, the Quran directs "believing men to lower their gaze and be modest." At the same time, it directs women to adhere to strict rules of clothing and conduct, with directions on how to conduct oneself both in private as well as public. Interestingly, with the use of full-body scanners at airports around the world, the bodily privacy of Muslims came to the forefront with several Muslim scholars opining that such use of scanners was in direct violation of the tenets of Islam. According to the Quran, the modesty of a Muslim woman is an indication of her faith.

Communication and Informational Privacy

Privacy is, in many ways, inextricably linked to the notions of personal autonomy, and inviolate personality. Privacy in matters apart from those concerned with proprietary interests was only developed as a legal idea around the ninth century, although the Quran made ample references to it. Whilst the term "privacy" is not directly alluded to in the Quran, it contains verses emphasizing the importance of respecting personal autonomy. The Quran (49:12) rebukes those who wish to pry into matters which do not concern them, or harbour suspicions in respect of others, conceding that some suspicions can even be considered crimes. This implies an injunction against investigation; which complements the prohibition of circulation of information pertaining to an individual's private sphere (24:19). According to this verse, publication of immorality is desirous of punishment. A reasonable conclusion from the reading of these verses is that the Quran mandates respect for the private sphere, guaranteeing that a faithful believer will not violate it. The Prophet is reported to have said that non interference of individuals in matters that do not concern them is a sign of their good faith. Interestingly, the injunction against unwarranted search is for all members of a Muslim community, not just followers of Islam. An extension of the concept of informational privacy is the privacy of one's opinion, which is believed to be beyond reproach regardless of its contents. Deeds in the public sphere can be subject to worldly punishment, but thoughts and opinions everywhere, are not subject to it.

The Sunnah have also emphasized on privacy in communications. The Prophet once said, "He, who looks into a letter belonging to his brother, looks into the Hellfire" , indicating that private communications shall enjoy their privacy even in the public domain. This is evident from another saying of the Prophet,"Private encounters result in entrustment", which entails a restriction on communications arising out of private meetings.

Territorial Privacy

Domestic privacy is considered an important facet of Islamic life and this idea pervades different aspects of Shariah. Privacy in regard to proprietary interests was in fact the first legal conception of privacy recognised by Muslim jurists. The Quran (24:27-8) forbids entering another's house in lieu of permission to do the same. It seeks to ensure that a person visiting another's house is welcome in that house; reminding individuals of their rights during such visits. Further, the Quran (2:189) envisions visits made to other's houses only through the front door, indicating respect and transparency in visiting another's dwelling place. Muslim scholars are of the opinion that such rules were laid down in order to safeguard one's private sphere; to allow people to modify their behaviour to accommodate a visitor in a private domain. Clarifying the reasons for such rules, a jurist offered the following explanation, "The first greeting is for the residents to hear the visitor, the second is for the residents to be cautious( fa-ya khudhu hidhrahum),and the third is for them to either welcome the visitor or send him away."

Privacy in the domestic sphere extends to both physical privacy as well as intangible privacy. The Prophet opined that if one's gaze has entered into a private home before his body does, permission to enter the home would be redundant. This follows from the idea that if a person curiously peeps into another's home, it is equivalent to him entering it himself. The right to privacy is extended to absolve the home owner of any guilt in the event of attack on the intruder. Curiously, the right to privacy within one's home is extended to privacy in respect of sinful behaviour within his private sphere; the accountability of a Muslim to his fellow humans is only to be discerned in respect of his public actions. This is illustrated by an interesting story in the Hadith of Umar ibn al-Khattab. Khattab climbed the wall of a house on the suspicion of wine being consumed within the premises. On his suspicion being confirmed, he chided them for their conduct. They then reminded him that while he pointed out their sins, he himself was guilty of three sins; spying on them, failing to greet them and also not approaching their house through the front door. He agreed with them and walked away.

The rationale behind recognising privacy in the domestic sphere is not just illegal intrusion into one's physical space; it is also intrusion into matters of sensitivity which widens the scope for privacy in Islamic Law.

III Privacy in Shariah Based States

Locating aspects of privacy is Shariah-based states is particularly challenging due to the duality of obligations that exists in their legal framework. While Islamic law focuses on obligations of individuals to the divine in all affairs and the state only in public matters, legal obligations in modern states are understood vis-à-vis the state only. The incorporation of Islam into these modern legal systems represents the attempt at reconciling two distinct sources of law. This Part will consider the legal frameworks for privacy in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

III.I Pakistan

Islamic law has had a profound impact on the legal system of Pakistan. This Islamic Republic integrates Shariah law into its common law system, as is evident from Article 227(1) of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan ("the 1973 Constitution"). It reads, " All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, in this Part referred to as the Injunctions of Islam, and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such injunction". In addition to the Constitutional safeguards, General Zia-ul-Haq, between 1977 and 1988 provided great impetus to Pakistan's process of incorporating Islam into its common law system through the establishment of appellate religious courts and also enactment of the Hudood criminal law, which was consequently criticized for being discriminatory and arbitrary.

Constitutional Provisions

Enshrined in the 1973 Constitution is the fundamental right of persons not to be subject to any action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property. While referring to the rights of individuals, Article 4(1) lays down, "To enjoy the protection of law and to be treated in accordance with law in the inalienable right of every citizen. Wherever he may be, and of every other person for the time being within Pakistan." While aspects of privacy can be read into this Article quite emphatically, the 1973 Constitution explicitly recognises the right to privacy, dignity and the inviolability of persons in Article 14(1),"The dignity of man, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable". The sanctity of these rights is vigorously upheld as laws inconsistent with fundamental rights are declared to be void to the extent of their inconsistency.

Bodily Privacy

The 1973 Constitution recognises the fundamental right of persons not to be subject to any action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property. The Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) refers to the protection of privacy of women in Section 509, upholding the modesty of women.

Communications and Informational Privacy

The Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act 1996 enables investigating authorities under the Act to take cognizance of illegalities in communications. These authorities submit their reports to the courts, ensuring the accountability of such events, as well as legitimising search and seizure in pursuance of intercepted communications. The Act also makes arrangements for authorised interception of communications in cases of national security, although the wide and sweeping powers bestowed under this Section are a cause for concern. Moreover, any person causing annoyance to another through a telephone is liable to criminal punishment under the Telegraph Act, 1885.

Medicaland Financial information is recognised as a unit of privacy in the legal system of Pakistan. The delicate balance between transparency of government action and extent of privacy of information is struck in the Freedom of Information Ordinance, which exempts divulging information regarding personal privacy of individuals, private documents and financial privacy.

As far as digital privacy is concerned, the law in Pakistan is still at a nascent stage. In 2000, Pakistan implemented the National Information Technology Policy and Action Plan, which provided for confidentiality of transactional information. In 2002, an Electronic Transactions Ordinance was passed with a view to recognise and protect electronic transactions, setting up a framework within which privacy of information can be guaranteed and authenticity can be verified. There is no devoted law on data protection yet, although a Draft Electronic Data Protection Bill was published by the Ministry of Information in 2005.

Territorial and Locational Privacy

Akin to notions of privacy of the home in Islamic law, criminal trespass is a punishable offence under the Pakistan Penal Code. Pakistan has an unfortunately intimate relationship with terrorism. The Anti Terrorism Act of 1997 incorporates some provisions which raise concerns as to the sanctity of individual privacy. The Act allows an officer of police, armed forces or civil armed forces to enter and search any premise, and to seize any property they suspect to be connected to a terrorist act, without a warrant. Perhaps what is more worrying is that the entry of an officer is not subject to review, unlike in other Islamic countries like the United Arab Emirates. The trade off between personal liberties and national security is acutely felt in Pakistan, with intelligence agencies carrying on mass surveillance, without any legal framework providing for the same.

III.II Privacy in Bangladesh

Bangladesh identifies itself as a secular nation, although Islam is the state religion. The Constitution of Bangladesh uses the word privacy in the context of both territorial and communications privacy.

Bodily Privacy

The Bangladesh Penal Code, similar to Pakistan's, contains a section guaranteeing the bodily privacy of a woman and prohibiting any form of outraging her modesty. It criminalises assault, and also provides for private defence in case of assault.

Communications Privacy

The privacy of communications is subject to interception for the purpose of public safety, as envisaged in the Telegraph Act, 1885. It also contains provisions regarding unlawful interception of messages, as well as tampering or damaging communications. The Telecommunications (Amendment) Act 2006 gives the police sweeping powers to intercept mobile communications as well. However, a notice was issued to the government after this amendment to demonstrate its legality. Bangladesh also has the Right to Information Act, 2009 to promote transparency in governance, although it has a considerable number of agencies exempt from the Act as well. Provisions for cyber crime are enshrined in the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006.

Territorial Privacy

In the context of territorial privacy, the Bangladesh Penal Code recognises criminal trespass, house trespass, lurking house trespass and house breaking as offences under Bangladeshi law.

IV. Conclusion

Privacy is a comprehensive term that entails a plethora of claims, making an exact definition of the term difficult to come by. In the absence of an explicit reference to privacy in the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court has brought the right to privacy within the penumbra of Article 21 through various case laws. In 2010, the Government in its approach paper on privacy claimed that India is not a particularly private nation. In order to comprehensively understand India's modern legal framework, it is imperative to analyze the concepts of traditional law as they existed hitherto the colonial era. Although the term "privacy" is a modern construct, this paper has sought to demonstrate that the notion of privacy was well recognized and protected in traditional Islamic law.

From the discussion above, it is evident that the concept of privacy in Shariah law rests convincingly within the taxonomy adopted in this paper. The Quran and Hadith accommodate concerns surrounding private property, personal autonomy, protection of private communications, domestic life, modesty and the modern idea of surveillance. In addition to this, Islamic jurisprudence ascribes to the idea of a public and private sphere. The public sphere is occupied by society and governmental action, being liable to scrutiny and observation. On the other hand, the private sphere is occupied by the individual and the divine alone, free from any interference except in accordance with Shariah law. Inspite of the term "privacy" not finding explicit mention in the Quran or Hadith, a closer analysis of Shariah reveals privacy as a pervasive theme in Islamic jurisprudence.

Daniel Solove, A Taxonomy of Privacy, Vol. 154, No.3 University of Pennsylvania Law Journal, 477 (2006).

Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard Law Review 193, 193 (1890).

Richard A. Posner, Privacy, Surveillance and the Law, Vol. 75 No. 1 The University of Chicago Law Review 245, 245 (2008).

Blanca Rodríguez Ruiz, Privacy in Telecommunications: A European and an American Approach 39 (1st ed. 1997).

James Q. Whitman, The Two Western Cultures of Privacy : Dignity versus Liberty, 113 Yale Law Journal 1152, 1153 (2004).

Whitman, supra note 5, at 1153.

Solove, supra note 1, at 479.

Ibid. Referencing Lillian r. BeVier, Information About Individuals in the Hands of Government: Some Reflections on Mechanisms for Privacy Protection, 4 WM. & MARY BILL RTS. J. 455, 458 (1995) .

Ibid. Referencing KIM LANE SCHEPPELE, LEGAL SECRETS 184-85 (1988).

Ibid. Referencing 1 J. THOMAS MCCARTHY, THE RIGHTS OF PUBLICITY AND PRIVACY § 5.59 (2d ed. 2005).

Solove, supra note 1, at 560.

Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, supra note 2, at 193.

William L Prosser, Privacy, 48 California Law Review 383,389 (1960).

Solove, supra note 1, at 488.

Data Security Council of India, Policy Paper: Privacy in India. Available at https://www.dsci.in/sites/default/files/Policy%20Paper%20-%20Privacy%20in%20India.pdf.

Department of Personnel and Training, (DoPT) Approach Paper for a Legislation on Privacy. Report available at http://ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02rti/aproach_paper.pdf.

Justice Ajit.P.Shah Committee, Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy, 60. Available at - http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/rep_privacy.pdf.

Bhairav Acharya, at http://freespeechhub.thehoot.org/freetracker/storynew.php?storyid=565&sectionId=10.

DoPT, Approach Paper. supra note 16.

Whitman, supra note 5, at 1154.

Chandran Kukathas, Cultural Privacy, Vol. 91, No. 1 The Monist 68, 69 (2008).

Marc Galanter, Displacement of Traditional Law in Modern India, Vol XXIV, No. 4 Journal of Social Issues 65, 67 (1968).

Stuart Corbridge & John Harriss, Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy 238 (Reprint, 2006).

Galanter, supra note 22, at 66.

Ibid. at 67.

Edward Said, Representing the Colonized: Anthropology's Interlocutors, Vol. 15 No.2 Critical Inquiry 205, 207 (1989).

Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Shari'ah Law, An Introduction 19 (2009)

M Mustafa Al Azami, Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature 7 (2002).

Id. at 3.

NJ Coulson, A History of Islamic Law 22 (1964)

Kamali, supra note 27, at 19.

Sunan Ibn Majah , Book of Tribulations (Kitab al-Fitan) , #3950, available at http://sunnah.com/ibnmajah/36.

Mohsen Kadivar, An Introduction to the Private and Public Debate in Islam, Vol.70 , No. 3 Social Research 659, 663 (2003).

Lara Aryani, Privacy Rights in Shariah and Shariah-based States, Vol. 3, Iss.2, Journal of Islamic State Practices in International Law, 3 (2007)

Kadivar, supra note 33, at 664.

Ibid. at 665.

Ibid. at 667. Referencing Koleini, Mohammad. Al-Kaafi. Qom, Vol. 2: 353 1388.

Ibid. at 671.

Ibid. at 664.

Social Contract Theory of John Locke(1932-1704) in the Contemporary World , SelectedWorks of Daudi Mwita, Nyamaka (2011) Available at http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=dmnyamaka.

Kadivar, supra note 33, at 664.

Ibid. at 673.

Abul a'la Mawdudi, Human Rights in Islam 24 (1995). Also available online, at http://books.google.co.in/books?id=RUJWdCOmmxoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Aryani, supra note 34, at 13.

This indicates Sura 24 : verse 58.

Holy Quran, 24:58 - O you who have believed, let those whom your right hands possess and those who have not [yet] reached puberty among you ask permission of you [before entering] at three times: before the dawn prayer and when you put aside your clothing [for rest] at noon and after the night prayer. [These are] three times of privacy for you. There is no blame upon you nor upon them beyond these [periods], for they continually circulate among you - some of you, among others. Thus does Allah make clear to you the verses; and Allah is Knowing and Wise. (Translation from Sahih International available at http://quran.com/24/58)

Reza Sadiq, Islam's Fourth Amendment : Search and Seizure in Islamic Doctrine and Muslim Practice, Vol. 40 Georgetown Journal of International Law 703, 730 (2008 - 2009).

Ibid. at 733. Referencing IBRAHIM ABDULLA AL-MARZOUQI, Human Rights in Islamic Law 392 (2000).

Rohen Peterson, The Emperor's New Scanner :Muslim Women at the Intersection of the First Amendment and Full Body Scanners, 22 Hastings Women's Law Journal 339, 343 (2011).

Holy Quran, 24:30 - Tell the believing men to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts. That is purer for them. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what they do. (Translation from Sahih International available at http://quran.com/24/30-31).

Holy Quran, 24:31- And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers, their brothers' sons, their sisters' sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed. (Translation from Sahih Internation, available at http://quran.com/24/30-31).

David Garner, Muslims warned not to go through airport body scanners because they violate Islamic rules on nudity, The daily mail, (Feb 12, 2010). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250616/Muslims-warned-airport-body-scanners-violate-Islamic-rules-nudity.html#ixzz3KF8hS6q3 .

Holy Quran, 33:59 - O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful. (Translation from Sahih International, available at http://quran.com/33/59.)

Eli Alshech, "Do Not Enter Houses Other than Your Own": The Evolution of the Notion of a Private Domestic Sphere in Early Sunnī Islamic Thought Vol. 11, No. 3, Islamic Law and Society 291, 304 (2004).

Holy Quran, 49:12 - O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful. ( Translation from Sahih International, available at http://quran.com/49/12)

Holy Quran, 24:19 - Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you do not know. ( Translation from Sahih International, available at http://quran.com/24/19)

Kadivar, supra note 33, at 666.

Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Islam Modernity violence and everyday life 176 (1^st ed. 2009)

Kadivar, supra note 33, at 667.

Ibid , at 178.

Ibid.

Alshech, supra note 54, at 291.

Holy Quran, 24:27-8 - O you who have believed, do not enter houses other than your own houses until you ascertain welcome and greet their inhabitants. That is best for you; perhaps you will be reminded. And if you do not find anyone therein, do not enter them until permission has been given you. And if it is said to you, "Go back," then go back; it is purer for you. And Allah is Knowing of what you do. ( Translation from Sahih International, available at http://quran.com/24)

Holy Quran, 2:189 - They ask you, [O Muhammad], about the new moons. Say, "They are measurements of time for the people and for Hajj." And it is not righteousness to enter houses from the back, but righteousness is [in] one who fears Allah. And enter houses from their doors. And fear Allah that you may succeed. (Translation from Sahih International, available at http://quran.com/2)

Alshech, supra note 54, at 308.

Ibid. at 306. Referencing Ibn Abi Hatim, 8 TAF5IRAL-QUR'ANAL-'ADHIM 2566 (Makiabat Nlilr Mustaffi 1999).

Ahmad, supra note 58, at 177.

Alshech, supra note 54, at 324.

Aryani, supra note 34, at 4. Also see Ahmad, supra note 24, at 178.

Alshech, supra note 54, at 310.

Kadivar, supra note 33, at 664.

Moeen Cheema, Beyond Beliefs: Deconstructing the Dominant Narratives of the Islamization of Pakistan's Law, 60 American Journal of Comparative Law 875 (2012).

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973. Available at http://www.na.gov.pk/publications/constitution.pdf.

Cheema, supra note 72, at 879.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, supra note 73.

Ibid.

Ibid. Article 8 - "(1) Any law, or any custom or usage having the force of law, in so far as it is inconsistent with the rights conferred by this Chapter, shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void. (2) The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the right so conferred and any law made in contravention of this clause shall, to the extent of such contravention, be void

Ibid. Article 4(2)(a) - "no action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in accordance with law."

Section 509, Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), Available at http://www.oecd.org/site/adboecdanti-corruptioninitiative/46816797.pdf.

Section 32, Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organisation) Act, 1996. Available at http://www.pta.gov.pk/media/pta_act_140508.pdf.

Ibid. Section 54.

Section 25-D, Pakistan Telegraph Act, 1885. Available at http://www.fia.gov.pk/law/Offences/26.pdf.

Section 12, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Code of Ethics. Available at http://www.pmdc.org.pk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=v5WmQYMvhz4%3D&tabid=292&mid=845.

http://www.sbp.org.pk/publications/prudential/ordinance_62.pdf

Section 8, Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002. Available at http://infopak.gov.pk/Downloads/Ordenances/Freedom_of_%20Information_Ordinance2002.pdf.

Pakistan IT Policy and Action Plan, available at http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/resources/pakistan-information-technology-policy.

Electronic Transactions Ordinance, available at http://www.pakistanlaw.com/eto.pdf.

For a more detailed account, see http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/ijc/articles/10/1.pdf. Second draft available at http://media.mofo.com/docs/mofoprivacy/PAKISTAN%20Draft%20Law%202nd%20Revision%20.pdf.

Sections 441 - 462, Pakistan Penal Code (XLV of 1860) Chapter XVII, "Offences against Property".

Section 5, Anti Terrorism Act, 1997. Available at http://www.fia.gov.pk/law/ata1997.pdf.

Ibid. Section 10.

Lara Aryani, supra note 34, at 21.

Julhas Alam, Bangladesh moves to retain Islam as state religion, Cns News, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/bangladesh-moves-retain-islam-state-religion.

Article 43, Constitution of Bangladesh. Available at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/research/bangladesh-constitution.pdf.

Section 509, Bangladesh Penal Code,1860. Available at http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/print_sections_all.php?id=11.

Ibid. Sections 351- 358.

Ibid . Section 100.

Section 5, Bangladesh Telegraph Act, 1885. Available at http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/print_sections_all.php?id=55.

Ibid . Section 24.

Ibid. Section 25.

Bangladesh Penal Code, 1860. supra note 95. Section 441.

Ibid. Section 442.

Ibid. Section 443.

Ibid. Section 445.

See, Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1963 SC 1295 : (1964) 1 SCR 332; Govind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1975 SC 1378; Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 1995 SC 264; People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 568; X v. Hospital Z, AIR 1999 SC 495.

DoPT, Approach Paper. supra note 16.

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