DailyPost 1878
TECHNOLOGY GOVERNANCE / GOVERNANCE TECHNOLOGY
Countries are getting strangulated in this enigma and by the time they understand the battle reaches to next level of comprehension and action and again the same battle. The final outcome is loss after loss. The end result of all that we do with technology is data and nature of its usage decides literally the future of everything. It also gives unassailable power, if you control data and through it human existence, and we can all experience this through the IT behemoths. Leading digital thinker Yuval Noah Harari feels that the way things are going, only municipal administration type activities will be left with the governments; draining, sewage, water supply et al. From being a sovereign government, which controls whatever it sees, it can be the biggest fall, since democracy became the most sought after governance format.
Where is the catch then? Why are we faltering to a level that we are putting democracy in jeopardy. The first and trickiest part is technology governance. How do you govern technology? No government has any control over internet, yet that happens to be the communication, information and value highway of the world. Every single thing in the last quarter of a century has been built on that. Internet of information is being exponentially transformed into internet of value. How do you govern its biggest manifestation; Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and the backend blockchain technology? Governance has handled incremental changes, now it is a different world. How do you regulate it? It impacts fiat currencies, banks to central banks to money transfer to remittances to exchanges. It has thrown the biggest challenge to date to the legality, statute enactment and regulations. It has to be then sufficiently enforcement.
What has been our track record in technology governance? The IT Act covers as much as it doesn’t. The pace of technology has thrown a spanner in the works. Encryption changed the rules of the game. The cyber security policy could not make any dent in the cyber security scenario. A serious revisit needs consideration. The encryption policy could not see the light of the day and had to be shelved at the draft stage itself. The complexity of our digital existence has be understand in detail and also in totality, to do an effective legal and enforcement tinkering with it. The battle with the Social Media is a worldwide phenomenon and we have had our share early this year. Before that we had the Chinese app story. The regulation of battle for data is hanging in the Bill stage for quite sometime. With the fast changing data and it’s world, hope it remains relevant beyond it’s passage.
Next enigma and a connected one is governance technology. We are forced to believe that ideal blend of governance technology synthesis has not happened. What technology in which variant and customisation should be ideal for our requirements, in multifarious areas, to deal with the specialized and to the generic. It is as complex as the governance of this country. Who will unriddle this formula? Is it possible without a specialized operational discipline called governance technology. From mix, match and jugaad fixing, it has to move on to integrated, seamless, deliverable, scalable, and an ever iterative one. Technology cannot be treated as alien any further. It is wedded to every single human activity, can governance be an exception. If not, we should get going and find our tech-governance tools at speed, deliver and elevate the level of governance, fit enough for the digital world.
THE RIDDLE OF TECHNOLOGY HAS TO BE SORTED OUT BOTH TO REGULATE IT AND TO USE IT AS AN EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE TOOL.
Sanjay Sahay