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Your economy, our livelihoods: A policy brief by the All India Gig Workers’ Union
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union
<b>In this policy brief, the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) presents its critique on NITI Aayog’s report on India’s platform economy. Through experiences from over 3 years of organising gig workers across India, they highlight fallacies in the report that disregard workers’ experiences and realities. They present alternative recommendations that are responsive to these realities, and offer pathways towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy.
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<p><span style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/your-economy-our-livelihoods.pdf">Click to download</a> the full report</span></p>
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<h3>Alternative recommendations towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy</h3>
<p><strong>Regulating the unchecked rise of platforms and the platform workforce</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The rise of platforms will not only affect workers in blue collar or grey collar jobs but also engulf other service sectors that currently provide permanent and dignified employment. The platform and gig work paradigm must not be used as a way to further deregulate the Indian economy by subterfuge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Robust regulatory mechanisms and worker protections must be extended to the gig economy and other forms of perennial employment threatened by the new Central labour codes. Gig workers must be recognised as employees with a clear test of employment enshrined in law.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A stronger push towards better paradigms of work can only come from alternative models of platform work. It is essential that the government foster the creation of platform cooperatives in certain service sectors. Such platform cooperatives will mitigate market concentration that results from the network effects of large private platforms, offer greater stability than profit-oriented private platforms, and offer genuine pro-people alternatives.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Securing data rights and employment security</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Gig workers must be guaranteed individual and collective rights to their data collected and stored by platforms. Workers’ data should belong to the workers. Workers should be able to access verified records of their training (if any) and work contributions. The government should prescribe standards to ensure that these records are machine-readable and universally inter-operable. In addition, workers must have easy access to verified receipts for each successful task performed on the platform.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Centering gender-responsive protections for workers facing intersectional vulnerabilities</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Platform work is uncritically accepted as a panacea for women without taking a deeper look at labour practices, and how women workers may be particularly vulnerable to workplace risks and exploitation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Considering these vulnerabilities, there must be legal and regulatory measures enabling women to participate in the gig economy more fully—for example, creches, sexual harassment prevention measures, equal wages, and proper hours and working conditions. Crucially, there should be safety provisions for all gig workers, especially for women who face greater dangers of harassment. Importantly, accessible and efficient enforcement mechanisms must be introduced to operationalise schemes and rights for women workers.</p>
<p><strong>Securing minimum social protection guarantees for all workers on digital platforms</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Effective minimum wages of INR 26,000 per month must be enforced as demanded by the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions in India. This figure must be used to determine the minimum earnings for an hour’s worth of work on a platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Provision for Provident Fund (PF) must be introduced, and a bank account that does not require minimum balances or related charges must also be guaranteed. Social insurance measures must be guaranteed including health insurance, personal accident insurance, pension, maternity benefits, and disability benefits. In addition, the state government must consider waiving off charges relating to fuel surcharges and parking expenses/ penalties for gig workers, while on duty.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Security and safety for women workers must be addressed by issuing government ID cards for gig workers. Gig workers are required to travel to unknown localities, where residents tend to be suspicious of them. The government ID card will help workers establish their identity and increase their credibility among the residents.</p>
<p>Social security legislation and a tripartite board (with representation of workers and worker organisations, government, and platforms) must be constituted to ensure registration of all platform-based gig workers and facilitate their access to social security. The law should cover all those persons who are engaged in professions that are using digital platforms for their last mile delivery.</p>
<p><strong>Building accountability mechanisms for financial inclusion measures on platforms</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">While including gig workers into the formal banking system is essential, this must not be used as a pretext to ensnare them into debt traps. Should the government wish to use platforms as a lever for financial inclusion, it must mandate platforms to deposit a minimum amount above and beyond workers’ existing incomes towards their consumption. For platforms, existing schemes must be rejigged—Firstly, the burden of credit schemes must not be borne only by public sector banks; the private sector must also be directed to take on some of the lending. Secondly, interest rates may be lowered for such loans, but this reduced rate must be made conditional on ensuring a certain threshold of working conditions to gig workers.</p>
<p><strong>Developing workforce estimation strategies that reflect workers’ realities</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Workers in the gig economy must not blindly be lumped with the unorganised sector without an understanding of nuances within the broad definition of the gig economy. Assumptions that workers in the gig economy have alternate sources of income must be refuted. Rather, in the case of gig workers in the Indian context, ground realities show that this work actually constitutes primary sources of income.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Primary data must be collected across the country where platform work is seen as a clear option for individuals to choose as a profession. Thus, one can estimate the percentage of the population that depends on the gig economy in a consistent manner. Digital platforms must provide adequate data to state governments on the number of workers registered on the platform in every region (along with work time data) in order for governments to actively prepare for public infrastructure requirements required for such employment generation.</p>
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<h3 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Contributors</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Authors: W.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. Natarajan</p>
<p dir="ltr">Images: All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU)</p>
<p dir="ltr">Design: Annushka Jaliwala</p>
<h3>About the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU)</h3>
<p dir="ltr">The All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) is a registered trade union for all food delivery, logistics, and service workers that work on any app-based platforms in India.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Contact: <a href="mailto:contactaigwu@gmail.com">contactaigwu@gmail.com</a></p>
<p>Connect: <a href="https://twitter.com/aigwu_union">Twitter</a>; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/aigwu">Facebook</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union</a>
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No publisherW.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. NatarajanLabour FuturesDigital EconomyGig WorkDigital LabourReserve Bank of IndiaFeaturedHomepage2024-01-31T00:02:12ZBlog EntryStrategies to Organise Platform Workers
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon
<b>In 2022, the Centre for Internet and Society hosted a panel with Akkanut Wantanasombut, Ayoade Ibrahim, Rikta Krishnaswamy, and Sofía Scasserra at RightsCon, an annual summit on technology and human rights. </b>
<p><b><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers/at_download/file">Click</a></b> to download the full report</p>
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<h3>Event Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This event report is based on proceedings from a panel hosted at the 2022 edition of RightsCon. Hosted by the labour and digitalisation team at CIS, the panel brought together seasoned labour organisers, activists, and researchers working across Thailand, Nigeria, India, and Argentina. The panellists represented a diverse group of worker organisations, including transnational federations, national unions, and informally organised movements.<br /><br />Their experiences of organising in research and practice infused our discussion with insight into collective action struggles across varied sectors and platform economies in the global south. Collective resistance among platform workers has witnessed a sustained rise in these economies over the past three years, with demands for transparency and accountability from platforms, and for a guarantee of rights and protections from governments.<br /><br />Through this panel, we sought to answer:</p>
<ol>
<li>How have workers’ organisations overcome challenges in sustained collective action?</li>
<li>What have been unique aspects of organising in the global south?</li>
<li>Which strategies have been gaining traction for organising workers and mobilising other stakeholders?</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />Placing workers’ participation front and centre, the panellists incorporated common threads around campaigning, education, and mobilisation for increasing worker participation, as well as bargaining with the government for legal and social protections. The panellists highlighted that it’s the resilience and resistance led by workers that drive the way for sustained organising. This panel hoped to spotlight steps taken in that direction, where organising efforts strive to form, sustain, and champion worker-led movements.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Contributors</h3>
<p><b>Panellists: </b><br />Akkanut Wantanasombut<br />Ayoade Ibrahim<br />Rikta Krishnawamy <br />Sofía Scasserra</p>
<p><b>Worker organisations in focus:</b><br />Tamsang-Tamsong<br />National Union of Professional App-based Transport Workers<br />International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers<br />All India Gig Workers’ Union <br />Federación Argentina de Empleados de Comercio y Servicios<br />Asociación de Personal de Plataformas</p>
<p><b>Conceptualisation and planning</b>: Ambika Tandon, Chiara Furtado, Aayush Rathi, and Abhishek Sekharan</p>
<p><b>Author</b>: Chiara Furtado<br /><b>Reviewers</b>: Ambika Tandon and Nishkala Sekhar<br /><b>Designer</b>: Annushka Jaliwala<br /><br />This event report is part of research supported by the Internet Society Foundation under the ‘Labour futures’ grant.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon</a>
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No publisherfurtadoLabour FuturesDigital EconomyResearchers at WorkGig WorkPlatform-WorkFeaturedRAW ResearchHomepage2023-10-22T09:54:52ZBlog EntryGetting the (Digital) Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Right
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right
<b>On the eve of the Tokyo Quad Summit in May 2022, President Biden unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), visualising cooperation across the Indo-Pacific based on four pillars: trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonisation and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption. Galvanised by the US, the other 13 founding members of the IPEF are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The first official in-person Ministerial meeting was held in Los Angeles on 9 September 2022.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="https://directionsblog.eu/getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right/">originally published in Directions</a> on 16 September 2022.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is still early days. Given the broad and noncommittal scope of the <a href="http://indiamediamonitor.in/ViewImg.aspx?rfW3mQFhdxZsqXnJzK5Xi5+XYlnW6zXnPDF3Ad56Y/KdgI1zvICzrodtLI85MPKdVO1fIh79GUlPfyXY2/bE2g==" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">economic arrangement</a>, it is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a trade deal among members in the short run. Instead, experts believe that this new arrangement is designed to serve as a ‘<a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/building-on-common-ground-7963518/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">framework or starting point</a>’ for members to cooperate on geo-economic issues relevant to the Indo-Pacific, buoyed in no small part by the United States’ desire to make up lost ground and counter Chinese economic influence in the region.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai has underscored the relevance of the Indo-Pacific digital economy to the US agenda with the IPEF. She has emphasized the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/05/23/on-the-record-press-call-on-the-launch-of-the-indo-pacific-economic-framework/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">importance of</a> collaboratively addressing key connectivity and technology challenges, including standards on cross-border data flows, data localisation and online privacy, as well as the discriminatory and unethical use of artificial intelligence. This is an ambitious agenda given the divergence among members in terms of technological advancement, domestic policy preferences and international negotiating stances at digital trade forums. There is a significant risk that imposing external standards or values on this evolving and politically-contested digital economy landscape will not work, and may even undermine the core potential of the IPEF in the Indo-Pacific. This post evaluates the domestic policy preferences and strategic interests of the Framework’s member states, and how the IPEF can navigate key points of divergence in order to achieve meaningful outcomes.</p>
<h3><strong>State of domestic digital policy among IPEF members</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Data localisation is a core point of divergence in global digital policymaking. It continues to dominate discourse and trigger dissent at all <a href="https://www.ikigailaw.com/the-data-localization-debate-in-international-trade-law/#acceptLicense" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">international trade forums</a>, including the World Trade Organization. IPEF members have a range of domestic mandates restricting cross-border flows, which vary in scope, format and rigidity (see table below)<strong>. </strong>Most countries only have a conditional data localisation requirement, meaning data can only be transferred to countries where it is accorded an equivalent level of protection – unless the individual whose data is being transferred consents to said transfer. <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ee977f2e-ecfb-45cf-9f63-186a78a49512#:~:text=Australia%20has%20no%20broad%20data,transferred%20or%20processed%20outside%20Australia." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Australia </a>and the <a href="https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pdi/docs/FAQs_Network_Penetration_Reporting_and_Contracting_for_Cloud_Services_(01-27-2017).pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">United States</a> have sectoral localisation requirements for health and defence data respectively. India presently has multiple sectoral data localisation requirements. In particular, a 2018 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) <a href="https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=11244&Mode=0" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">directive</a> imposed strict local storage requirements along with a 24-hour window for foreign processing of payments data generated in India. The RBI imposed a <a href="https://theprint.in/economy/what-is-data-localisation-why-mastercard-amex-diners-club-cant-add-more-customers-in-india/703790/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">moratorium</a> on the issuance of new cards by several US-based card companies until compliance issues with the data localisation directive were resolved. Furthermore, several iterations of India’s recently <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/explained-why-has-the-government-withdrawn-the-personal-data-protection-bill-2019/article65736155.ece" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">withdrawn </a>Personal Data Protection Bill contained localisation requirements for some categories of personal data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indonesia and Vietnam have <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-retreat-of-the-data-localization-brigade-india-indonesia-and-vietnam/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">diluted</a> the scopes of their data localisation mandates to apply, respectively, only to companies providing public services and to companies not complying with other local laws. These dilutions may have occurred in response to concerted pushback from foreign technology companies operating in these countries. In addition to sectoral restrictions on the transfer of geospatial data, South Korea<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/korean-approach-to-data-localization-pub-85165" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"> retains </a>several procedural checks on cross-border flows, including formalities regarding providing notice to individual users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moving onto another issue flagged by USTR Tai, while all IPEF members recognise the right to information privacy at an overarching or constitutional level, the legal and policy contours of data protection are at different stages of evolution in different countries. <a href="https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/index.html?t=law&c=JP#:~:text=Personal%20Information%20Protection%20Commission,-Kasumigaseki%20Common%20Gate&text=Japan%20does%20not%20have%20a%20central%20registration%20system.&text=There%20is%20no%20specific%20legal,(eg%20Chief%20Privacy%20Officer)." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Japan</a>, <a href="https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/index.html?t=law&c=KR" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">South Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.pdp.gov.my/jpdpv2/assets/2020/01/Introduction-to-Personal-Data-Protection-in-Malaysia.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Malaysia</a>, <a href="https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/data-protected/data-protected---new-zealand#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20data%20portability%20right%20in%20New%20Zealand.&text=While%20there%20is%20no%20%22right,a%20correction%20to%20that%20information." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">New Zealand,</a> <a href="https://www.privacy.gov.ph/data-privacy-act/#:~:text=%E2%80%93%20(a)%20The%20personal%20information,against%20any%20other%20unlawful%20processing." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Philippines</a>, <a href="https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Overview-of-PDPA/The-Legislation/Personal-Data-Protection-Act#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20PDPA%3F,Banking%20Act%20and%20Insurance%20Act." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Singapore</a> and <a href="https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/thailand-personal-data-protection-act#:~:text=The%20legislation%20mandates%20that%20data,1%20million%20in%20criminal%20fines." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Thailand </a>have data protection frameworks in place. Data protection frameworks in India and Brunei are under consultation. Notably, the US does not have a comprehensive federal framework on data privacy, although there are patchworks of data privacy regulations at both the federal and state levels.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regulation and strategic thinking on artificial intelligence (AI) are also at varying levels of development among IPEF members. India has produced a slew of policy papers on Responsible Artificial Intelligence. The most recent <a href="https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-08/Part2-Responsible-AI-12082021.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">policy paper</a> published by NITI AAYOG (the Indian government’s think tank) refers to constitutional values and endorses a risk-based approach to AI regulation, much like that adopted by the EU. The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), chaired by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, expressed concerns about the US ceding AI leadership ground to China. The NSCAI’s final <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report </a>emphasised the need for US leadership of a ‘coalition of democracies’ as an alternative to China’s autocratic and control-oriented model. Singapore has also made key strides on trusted AI, launching <a href="https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/news-and-events/announcements/2022/05/launch-of-ai-verify---an-ai-governance-testing-framework-and-toolkit" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">A.I. verify</a> – the world’s first AI Governance Testing Framework for companies that wish to demonstrate their use of responsible AI through a minimum verifiable product.</p>
<h3><strong>IPEF and pipe dreams of digital trade</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some members of the IPEF are signatories to other regional trade agreements. With the exception of Fiji, India and the US, all the IPEF countries are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/rcep#:~:text=RCEP%20entered%20into%20force%20on,Australia%20as%20an%20original%20party." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">(RCEP)</a>, which also includes China. Five IPEF member countries are also members of the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/cptpp/comprehensive-and-progressive-agreement-for-trans-pacific-partnership" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)</a> that President Trump backed out of in 2017. Several IPEF members also have bilateral or trilateral trading agreements among themselves, an example being the <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/digital-economy-partnership-agreement-depa/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA)</a> between Singapore, New Zealand and Chile.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Pie.png" alt="Pie" class="image-inline" title="Pie" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All these ‘mega-regional’ trading agreements contain provisions on data flows, including prohibitions on domestic legal provisions that mandate local computing facilities or restrict cross-border data transfers. Notably, these agreements also incorporate <a href="https://publications.clpr.org.in/the-philosophy-and-law-of-information-regulation-in-india/chapter/indias-engagement-with-global-trade-regimes-on-cross-border-data-flows/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">exceptions</a> to these rules. The CPTPP includes within its ambit an exception on the grounds of ‘legitimate public policy objectives’ of the member, while the RCEP incorporates an additional exception for ‘essential security interests’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IPEF members are also spearheading <a href="https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/wto/can-the-wto-build-consensus-on-digital-trade/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multilateral efforts </a>related to the digital economy: Australia, Japan and Singapore are working as convenors of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which counts 86 WTO members as parties. India (along with South Africa) vehemently <a href="https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/WT/GC/W819.pdf&Open=True" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opposes</a> this plurilateral push on the grounds that the WTO is a multilateral forum functioning on consensus and a plurilateral trade agreement should not be negotiated within the aegis of the WTO. They fear, rightly, that such gambits close out the domestic policy space, especially for evolving digital economy regimes where keen debate and contestation exist among domestic stakeholders. While wary of the implications of the JSI, other IPEF members, such as Indonesia, have cautiously joined the initiative to ensure that they have a voice at the table.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a digital trade arrangement in the short run. Policymaking on issues as complex as the digital economy that must respond to specific social, economic and (geo)political realities cannot be steamrolled through external trade agreements. For instance, after the Los Angeles Ministerial India <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-opts-out-of-joining-ipef-trade-pillar-to-wait-for-final-contours-122091000344_1.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opted out</a> of the IPEF trade pillar citing both India’s evolving domestic legislative framework on data and privacy as well as a broader lack of consensus among IPEF members on several issues, including digital trade. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal explained that India would wait for the “<a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1858243" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">final contours</a>” of the digital trade track to emerge before making any commitments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Besides, brokering a trade agreement through the IPEF runs a risk of redundancy. Already, there exists a ‘<a href="https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/a01_0193.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">spaghetti bowl’</a> of regional trading agreements that IPEF members can choose from, in addition to forming bilateral trade ties with each other.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is why Washington has been clear about calling the IPEF an ‘<a href="https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-set-to-join-us-led-indo-pacific-economic-arrangement-next-week-with-aim-to-counter-china/963795/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">economic arrangement</a>’ and not a trade agreement. Membership does not imply any legal obligations. Rather than duplicating ongoing efforts or setting unrealistic targets, the IPEF is an opportunity for all players to shape conversations, share best practices and reach compromises, which could feed back into ongoing efforts to negotiate trade deals. For example, several members of RCEP have domestic data localisation mandates that do not violate trade deals because the agreement carves out exceptions that legitimise domestic policy decisions. Exchanges on how these exceptions work in future trade agreements could be a part of the IPEF arrangement and nudge states towards framing digital trade negotiations through other channels, including at the WTO. Furthermore, states like Singapore that have launched AI self-governance mechanisms could share best practices on how these mechanisms were developed as well as evaluations of how they have helped policy goals be met. And these exchanges shouldn’t be limited to existing IPEF members. If the forum works well, countries that share strategic interests in the region with IPEF members, including, most notably, the European Union, may also want to get involved and further develop partnerships in the region.</p>
<h3><strong>Countering China</strong></h3>
<p>Talking shop on digital trade should certainly not be the only objective of the IPEF. The US has made it clear that they want the message emanating from the IPEF ‘<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/biden-to-visit-japan-for-quad-summit-to-have-bilateral-meetings-with-modi-122051900128_1.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">to be heard in Beijing</a>’. Indeed, the IPEF offers an opportunity for the reassertion of US economic interests in a region where President Trump’s withdrawal from the CPTPP has left a vacuum for China to fill. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the IPEF has representation from several regions of the Indo-Pacific: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.</p>
<p>This should be an urgent policy priority for all IPEF members. Since its initial announcement in 2015, the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/china-digital-silk-road/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Digital Silk Road (DSR)</a>, the digital arm of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has spearheaded <a href="https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/02/china-digital-silk-road-implications-for-defence-industry" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">massive investments</a> by the Chinese private sector (allegedly under close control of the Chinese state) in e-commerce, fintech, smart cities, data centres, fibre optic cables and telecom networks. This expansion has also happened in the Indo-Pacific, unhampered by China’s aggressive geopolitical posturing in the region through maritime land grabs in the South China Sea. With the exception of <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3024479/vietnam-shuns-huawei-it-seeks-build-aseans-first-5g" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Vietnam</a>, which remains wary of China’s economic expansionism, countries in Southeast Asia welcome Chinese investments, extolling their developmental benefits. Several IPEF members – <a href="https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ISEAS_Perspective_2022_57.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">including</a> Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore – have associations with Chinese private sector companies, predominantly Huawei and ZTE. A <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/07/11/localization-and-china-s-tech-success-in-indonesia-pub-87477" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a> evaluating Indonesia’s response to such investments indicates that while they are aware of the risks posed by Chinese infrastructure, their calculus remains unaltered: development and capacity building remain their primary focuses. Furthermore, on the specific question of surveillance, given evidence of other countries such as the US and Australia also using digital infrastructure for surveillance, the threat from China is not perceived as a unique risk.</p>
<h3><strong>Setting expectations and approaches</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Still, the risks of excessive dependence on one country for the development of digital infrastructure are well known. While the IPEF cannot realistically expect to displace the DSR, it can be utilised to provide countries with alternatives. This can only be done by issuing carrots rather than sticks. A US narrative extolling ‘digital democracy’ is unlikely to gain traction in a region characterised by a diversity of political systems that is focused on economic and development needs. At the same time, an excessive focus on thorny domestic policy issues – such as data localisation and the pipe dream of yet another mega-regional trade deal – could risk derailing the geo-economic benefits of the IPEF.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, the IPEF must focus on capacity building, training and private sector investment in infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. The US must position itself as a geopolitically reliable ally, interested in the overall stability of the digital Indo-Pacific, beyond its own economic or policy preferences. This applies equally to other external actors, like the EU, who may be interested in engaging with or shaping the digital economic landscape in the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Countering Chinese economic influence and complementing security agendas set through other fora – such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – should be the primary objective of the IPEF. It is crucial that unrealistic ambitions seeking convergence on values or domestic policy do not undermine strategic interests and dilute the immense potential of the IPEF in catalysing a more competitive and secure digital Indo-Pacific.</p>
<h3><strong>Table: Domestic policy positions on data localisation and data protection</strong></h3>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Table.png/@@images/8e9a5192-5f6c-4666-8d78-e0863111534a.png" alt="Table" class="image-inline" title="Table" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right</a>
</p>
No publisherarindrajitPrivacyInternet GovernanceDigital GovernanceDigital Economy2022-10-03T14:56:22ZBlog EntryPlatforms, Power, and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-perspectives-from-domestic-and-care-work-in-india
<b>CIS has been undertaking a two-year project studying the entry of digital platforms in the domestic and care work in India, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network. Implemented through 2019-21, the objective of the project is to use a feminist lens to critique platform modalities and orient platformisation dynamics in radically different, worker-first ways. Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi led the research team at CIS. The Domestic Workers’ Rights Union is a partner in the implementation of the project, as co-researchers. Geeta Menon, head of DWRU, was an advisor on the project, and the research team consisted of Parijatha G.P., Radha Keerthana, Zeenathunnisa, and Sumathi, who are office holders in the union and are responsible for organising workers and addressing their concerns.
</b>
<p><span>The Executive Summary for the project report is below.</span></p>
<p>The full report, ‘Platforms, power, and politics: Perspectives from domestic and care work in India’, can be found <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-pdf" class="external-link">here</a>.</p>
<p>The press release can be found <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-press-release-pdf" class="external-link">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h3></h3>
<h3><span>Introduction</span></h3>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Paid domestic and care work is witnessing the entry of digital intermediaries over the past decade. More recently, there has been tremendous growth of digital platforms. This holds the potential to impact millions of workers in the sector, which is characterised by a long history of informality and exclusion from rights-according legal frameworks. Digital intermediation of domestic and care work has been a space of high-growth, but also high-attrition. In India, order books of digital platforms providing domestic and care work services were reported to have been growing by upto 60 percent month-on-month in 2016. This is expected to shift the organisation of workers and employment relations profoundly. <br /><br />Broadly, the discourse on digital platforms providing home-based services can be summarised as follows: proponents argue that digitisation will act as a step towards bringing formalisation to the sector, while critics argue that platforms could replicate the exploitation of workers by further disguising the employer-employee relationship. Similar debates around lack of protections and precarity have also taken place in other occupations in gig work such as transportation and food delivery. In fact, the similarity in precarity and the informal nature of this relationship across gig work and domestic work has led to domestic workers being labelled the original gig workers. Domestic work is a particularly vulnerable and unprotected sector, which makes work in the sector qualitatively different from most other sectors in the gig or sharing economy.<br /><br />Through a feminist approach to digital labour, our project aimed to examine the dynamics of platformisation in, and of domestic or reproductive care work. Our hypothesis was that platforms are reconfiguring labour conditions, which could empower and/or exploit workers in ways qualitatively different from non-standard work off the platform. In order to interrogate this further, we studied several aspects of the work relationship, including wages, conditions of work, social security, skill levels, and worker surveillance off platforms.</p>
<h3>Methodology</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We borrowed from ethnographic methods and feminist principles to co-design and implement the research tools with grassroots workers and organisers. Between June to November 2019, we conducted 65 in-depth semi-structured interviews primarily in New Delhi and Bengaluru. A majority of these were with domestic workers who were seeking or had found work through platforms. We also did interviews with workers who had found work through traditional placement agencies to compare our findings, and with representatives from platforms, government labour departments, and workers collectives. Of the workers we interviewed, a majority were women, but men were included as well. Interviews in New Delhi were undertaken by CIS, while interviews with workers in Bengaluru were undertaken by grassroots activists in Bengaluru, affiliated with the Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU).</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In implementing the data collection approach, we employed feminist methodological principles of intersectionality, self-reflexivity, and participation. The methodology draws on standpoint theory, which encourages knowledge production that centres the lived experiences of marginalised groups. We were acutely aware of our own positionality as high income, Savarna researchers studying a sector dominated by Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women from low income groups. This power differential was softened partially by involving DWRU through the course of the project. Workers across both field sites were also interviewed in spaces familiar to them, most often their homes, in languages that they were comfortable with including Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Feminist principles also instrumental during the data analysis, with focus on intersectionality and self-reflexivity. We highlighted the ways in which inequalities of gender, income, migration status, caste, and religion are replicated and amplified in the platform economy. In particular, we discussed the impact of the digital gender gap in access and skills on workers’ ability to find economic opportunities.</p>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Findings</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our typology of platforms mediating domestic work finds three types of platforms – (i) marketplace, or platforms that list workers’ data on their profile, provide certain filters for automated selection of a pool of workers, and charge a fee from customers for access to workers’ contact details, (ii) digital placement agency, or platforms that provide an end-to-end placement service to customers, identify appropriate workers on the basis of selection criteria, and negotiate conditions of work on behalf of workers, and (iii) on-demand platforms, or companies that provide services or ‘gigs’ such as cleaning on an hourly basis, performed by a roster of workers who are characterised as ‘independent contractors’.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When it comes to the role played by platforms in determining employment relations, there is a wide variation within and across platform categories. There are both weak and strong models of intervention. On one end of the spectrum are marketplaces, with minimal intervention in the recruitment process, and on the other on-demand platforms, that exact control over each aspect of work. Digital platforms reconfigure the conception of intermediaries in the domestic work sector, functioning as next-generation placement agencies. All three platform types contain aspects that provide workers agency, as well as those that reinforce their positions of low-power. Platform design impacts the role platforms play in setting conditions of work, but does not determine it entirely.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>(Re)shaping the terms of work</strong><br />Across the three types of platforms, wages are slightly higher than or matching those of workers off platforms. Some marketplace platforms have incorporated features to nudge customers towards setting higher wages, such as enforcing minimum wage standards, or informing customers of expected wages in their locality. Conversely, on-demand platforms charge a high rate of commission from workers, despite refusing to recognise them as employees. This indicates that this is a misclassification of an employment relationship, given that workers are unable to set their own conditions or wages for work. Despite the high rates of commission and appropriation of labour by platforms, on-demand workers earn higher wages than workers on other platforms. The relatively high wage is a result of marketing on-demand cleaning as professionalised and more skilled than day-to-day cleaning. Tasks in the sector continue to be distributed along the lines of gender and caste, as has historically been the case. Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women are more likely to take up work such as cleaning and washing dishes, while men and women across castes are equally distributed in cooking work. Women dominate tasks such as elderly and childcare, as in the traditional economy. Workers in professionalised tasks such as deep cleaning that requires technical equipment and chemicals are almost entirely men.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Digital divides and workers’ agency</strong><br />We find that workers are primarily onboarded onto platforms by learning about it from other workers, through onboarding camps held by platforms, or offline advertising by platforms. Such in-person onboarding techniques allows workers with no digital access or literacy to register themselves on marketplace platforms and digital placement agencies.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, we find that low levels of education and digital literacy continue to impact platformed labour by creating a strong informational asymmetry between workers and platforms. For instance, we find that women workers from low income communities have very little information about how platforms work, causing deep distrust. Workers with digital devices and literacy (and therefore a relatively better understanding of the functionality of the platform), physical mobility and the resources to bear indirect costs that were outsourced to them were at a significant advantage in finding better-paying jobs. Workers who were seeking flexibility and were not necessarily dependent on the platform for their primary income were also better placed than those entirely dependent on platforms. Women workers tended to be disadvantaged on all these counts, limiting their agency and capacity to reap the benefits of the platform economy.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Across the three types of platforms, systems of placement and ratings add to the information asymmetry, as workers are not aware of the impact of ratings on their ability to find work or charge better wages. Ratings and filtering systems also hard-code the impact of workers’ social characteristics on their work. Workers are unable to exercise control over their data, further undermining their agency vis-a-vis platforms and employers. We identify a clear need for collective bargaining structures to protect workers’ rights, although platformed domestic workers remained distant from both domestic work unions and emergent unions of platform workers in other sectors.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Intersectionalities of formalisation</strong><br />We find that inequalities of caste, class, and gender that have historically shaped the sector continue to be replicated or even amplified in the platform economy. What remains clear is that platforms in the domestic work sector adopt the logics of this sector, more than the converse. Platformisation is conflated with formalisation, and it is within this vector, from complete informality to piecemeal formalisation, that platforms operate. Labour benefits do not take the form of labour protections or welfare entitlements that are the central function of formalisation processes. Instead, the so-called benefits are intended to transform domestic workers to participate within the logics and vagaries of the market.</p>
<h3>Policy Recommendations</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Recognise and implement labour protections for domestic workers </strong><br />Domestic workers have historically occupied the most vulnerable positions in the workforce, with limited legal protections. Exposed to the regulatory grey areas that platforms operate in, this doubly exposes domestic workers to precarious conditions of work. Despite an avowed move towards formalisation of domestic work, platform-mediated labour continues to retain characteristics of informal labour, even heightening some.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If pushed to do so, platform companies can be instrumental in resolving some of the implementation challenges that governments have faced in enforcing legislative protections sought to be made available to domestic workers. Platforms have databases of workers, which can be used to mandatorily register them for social security schemes offered by the government. This data can also be used for better policy making, in the absence of reliable statistics particularly on migrant workers in the informal economy.<em><strong><br /></strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Reduce the protective gap between employment and self-employment </strong><br />The (mis)classification of “gig” work within labour law frameworks is still a matter that continues to be hotly debated within policy practitioners, legal scholarship, and civil society actors. Three positions, in particular, have been taken—treating gig workers as employees, independent contractors, or occupying a third intermediate category. More recently, there have been some legal victories guaranteeing employment protections and increasing platform companies’ accountability. However, these successes have been more visible in Global North jurisdictions.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regardless of the resolution of these ongoing debates over employment status, labour frameworks should provide some universal protections to all categories of labour. Such protections must include universal coverage of social security, in addition to rights such as freedom of association, collective bargaining, equal remuneration and anti-discrimination. Policies geared towards achieving this objective would be significant in reducing the protective gaps between different categories of labour, and would particularly help historical and emerging occupational categories of workers such as “gig” workers and domestic workers.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Recognise the specific challenge(s) and potential of platformisation of domestic work </strong><br />Platforms hold the potential of acting as effective facilitators in informal labour markets. Even when they do not replace existing recruitment pathways, they provide alternate ones. Workers were more likely to register on a platform if they were entering the domestic work labour market recently (often distress and migration driven), or had not enjoyed success with informal, word-of-mouth networks. However, platforms also heighten labour market insecurities, and create new ones. These potential risks need to be specifically recognised through appropriate frameworks, such as social security, discrimination law and data protection.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Tailor policy-making to platform models </strong><br />We identify three types of platforms, each of which intervene to varying degrees in the work relationship. We recommend that digital placement agencies and marketplace platforms be registered with governments and enforce basic protections for workers such as provision of minimum wage, preventing abuse (including non-payment of wages) and trafficking. On-demand companies on the other hand, must be treated as employers, and workers be accorded employment protections including social security.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition to rights-based policy actions, legal-regulatory mechanisms geared towards mitigating the precariousness of platform-based work are required. This can take the shape of clarifying and expanding existing legal-regulatory formulations, or preparing new ones. Such policy making should factor in the power and information asymmetry between domestic workers (and gig workers, generally) and platforms.</p>
<div></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further, in the absence of health or retirement benefits, risks and indirect costs of operations are shifted from employers to workers. For instance, workers provide capital in the form of tools or equipment, support the fluctuation of business and income, and can be ‘deactivated’ from an application as a result of poor ratings or periods of inactivity. Any regulation aiming to extend employee status should mandate platforms to support such indirect costs.</p>
<h3>Related Publications</h3>
<p>1. <a class="external-link" href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/digital-mediation-of-reproductive-and-care-work">Research notes</a> with reflections from union members. <br />2. The <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation">event report</a> from a stakeholder consultation with workers, unions, companies and government representatives. <br />3. A <a class="external-link" href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/doing-standpoint-theory">reflection note</a> on the participatory approach taken by the project. <br />4. A <a class="external-link" href="https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/singapur/17840.pdf">paper</a> with a comparative analysis of the policy landscape on domestic work in the platform economy.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-perspectives-from-domestic-and-care-work-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-perspectives-from-domestic-and-care-work-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi, and Ambika TandonDigital EconomyResearchers at WorkPlatform-WorkFeaturedRAW ResearchHomepageDigital Domestic Work2021-07-07T15:19:37ZBlog EntryIFAT and ITF - Protecting Workers in the Digital Platform Economy: Investigating Ola and Uber Drivers’ Occupational Health and Safety
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety
<b>Between July to November 2019, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers. CIS is proud to publish the study report and the press release. Akash Sheshadri, Ambika Tandon, and Aayush Rathi of CIS supported post-production of this report.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Report: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety-report/" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Press Release: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety-press-release" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>Press Release, August 25, 2020</h3>
<p><br />Between July to November 2019, IFAT and ITF conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers.</p>
<p>Some of the most startling findings from the survey are below:</p>
<ul>
<li>There is a complete absence of social security and protection—a glaring 95.3% claimed to have no form of insurance, accidental, health or medical. This reflects the inability of workers to invest in their own health. This partly is a result of declining wages—after paying off their EMIs, penalties and commission to the companies and having less than Rs. 20,000 left at the end of the month.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Only 0.15% of the respondents reported to have access to accidental insurance, which is the bare minimum companies like Ola and Uber should have provided to their drivers.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Uber and Ola provide no assistance with regard to harassment and violence while drivers are on the road. Ola or Uber for the most part do not intervene if there is any intimidation from traffic police or local authorities, incidents of road rage, violent attack by customers or criminal elements that endanger drivers’ lives, accidents while driving etc.<br /><br /></li>
<li>On average drivers spend close to 16-20 hours in their cars in a day. 39.8% of the respondents spent close to 20 hours in their vehicle in a day, and 72.8% of the respondents from Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad drive for close to 20 hours a day. Due to long hours, 89.8% of the respondents claim they get less than 6 hours of sleep.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Health issues arising directly as a result of conditions of work is affecting the day-to-day lives of workers. Backache, constipation, liver issues, waist pain and neck pain are the top five health ailments that app-based transport workers suffer from due to their work. 60.7% respondents identified backache as a major health issue.</li>
</ul>
<p>App-based drivers/driver partners work in a very toxic and isolated work environment. Drivers can’t exit their current occupational status even if they want to because they are shackled in debts and outstanding EMIs. As a result, they race every day to complete targets so that they may earn just enough to pay these liabilities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The work these drivers are engaged in cannot be considered to be within the ambit of decent work and in reality, is representative of modern slavery. The algorithm of the companies they work for, pits them against their peers in order to maximize profit, while at the same time denying them social security or protection and essentially refusing to acknowledge them as employees.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Drivers working in various cities and working for different app-based platforms have complained about the lack of transparency in how these app-based companies determine fares, promotional cost, surge pricing, incentives, penalties and bonuses. There is little to no information on how rides are being fixed or are being allocated. There also isn't any effective grievance redressal mechanism to resolve any of the issues faced by workers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The apathy of the state and the exploitation by app-based companies have brought the transport and delivery workers in a precipitous position across the globe. This is underlined and explained by the absence and lack of any social security or protection for the workforce, there are some other issues that the workforce is battling during the Covid-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>Hear our voices and address our demands.</p>
<p>- <em>Shaik Salauddin</em></p>
<p>National General Secretary, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)<br /> Phone: +91 96424 24799</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers</strong><br /> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/connectifat/" target="_blank">connectifat</a><br /> Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/connect_ifat" target="_blank">@connect_ifat</a><br /> YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1AxGq0Fb_A_O_Ey44eiPg" target="_blank">Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety</a>
</p>
No publisherIndian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi officeDigital EconomyResearchers at WorkDigital LabourCovid19ResearchPlatform-WorkFeaturedHomepage2021-06-29T06:53:47ZBlog EntryThe Competition Law Case Against Whatsapp’s 2021 Privacy Policy Alteration
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-competition-law-case-against-whatsapp2019s-2021-privacy-policy-alteration
<b>Having examined the privacy implications of Whatsapp's changes to its privacy policy in 2021, this issue brief is the second output in our series examining the effects of those changes. This brief examines the changes in the context of data sharing between Whatsapp and Facebook as being an anticompetitive action in violation of the Indian Competition Act, 2002. </b>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e4a5c52-7fff-f416-6970-948314f0b524">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Executive Summary</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">On January 4, 2021, Whatsapp announced a revised privacy policy through an in-app notification. It highlighted that the new policy would impact user interactions with business accounts, including those which may be using Facebook's hosting services. The updated policy presented users with the option of either accepting greater data sharing between Whatsapp and Facebook or being unable to use the platform post 15th May, 2021. The updated policy resulted in temporarily slowed growth for Whatsapp and increased growth for other messaging apps like Signal and Telegram. While Whatsapp has chosen to delay the implementation of this policy due to consumer outrage, it is important for us to unpack and understand what this (and similar policies) mean for the digital economy, and its associated competition law concerns. Competition law is one of the sharpest tools available to policy-makers to fairly regulate and constrain the unbridled power of large technology companies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">While it is evident the Indian competition landscape will benefit from revisiting the existing law and policy framework to reign in Big technology companies, we argue that the change in Whatsapp’s privacy policy in 2021 can be held anti-competitive using legal provisions as they presently stand. Therefore, in this issue brief, we largely limit ourselves to evaluating the legality of Whatsapp’s privacy policy within the confines of the present legal system. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">First, we dive into an articulation of the present abuse of dominance framework in Indian Competition Law. Second, we analyze whether there was abuse of dominance-bearing in mind an economic analysis of Whatsapp’s role in the relevant market by using tests laid out in previous rulings of the CCI</p>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The framework for determining abuse of dominance as per The Competition Act is based on three factors:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">1. Determination of relevant market</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">2. Determination of dominant position</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">3. Abuse of the dominant position</p>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In two previous orders in 2016 and 2020, CCI has held that Whatsapp is dominant in its relevant market based on several factors which we explore. These include:</p>
<ol><li style="list-style-type: decimal;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Advantage in user base, usage and reach,</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: decimal;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Barriers to entry for other competitors</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: decimal;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Power of acquisition over competitors.</p>
</li></ol>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">However, in both orders, CCI held that Whatsapp did not abuse its dominance by arguing that the practices in question allowed for user choice. We critique these judgments for not reflecting the market structures and exploitative practices of large technology companies. We also argue that even if we use the test of user choice laid down by the CCI in its previous orders concerning Whatsapp and Facebook, the changes made to the privacy policy in 2021 did abuse dominance,and should be held guilty of violating competition law standards.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Our analysis revolves around examining the explicit and implicit standards of user choice laid out by the CCI in its 2016 and 2020 judgements as the standard for evaluating fairness in an Abuse of Dominance claim.We demonstrate how the 2021 changes failed to meet these standards. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Finally, we conclude by noting that the present case offers a crucial opportunity for India to take a giant step forward in its regulation of big tech companies and harmonise its rulings with regulatory developments around the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The full issue brief can be found <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/whatsapp-privacy-policy-2021-issue-brief-competition-law">here</a></p>
<div> </div>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<div> </div>
</span>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-competition-law-case-against-whatsapp2019s-2021-privacy-policy-alteration'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-competition-law-case-against-whatsapp2019s-2021-privacy-policy-alteration</a>
</p>
No publisherAman Nair and Arindrajit BasuConsumer RightsDigital EconomyData ProtectionFacebookCompetitionWhatsAppCompetition Law2021-03-24T16:12:09ZBlog EntryLabour futures: Intersectional responses to southern digital platform economies
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies
<b>It is our great pleasure to announce that we are undertaking a two-year research project to comprehensively analyse dominant and emerging sectors in India’s platform economies. The project is funded by a research grant of USD 200,000 from the Internet Society Foundation.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>The works emerging from this project will directly inform the ongoing challenges that various stakeholders are encountering in negotiating policy-making for the platform economy. It will attempt to address these challenges by bringing forth a southern and worker-first understanding of the platform economy. In the immediate term, the project will speak to labour law "reforms" underway in India. In the long term, it will engage with historical and forthcoming policy discourse regionally and in India around regulation of e-commerce, trade, competition, and digital platforms.</p>
<h3>Provocations</h3>
<p>Few recent developments in recent times have attracted as much public and scholarly and policy attention as the platform economy (and it’s various terminologies such as sharing/gig/on-demand economy). While it is widely acknowledged that the platform economy is rapidly growing, very little is known about its size other than monetary estimates of market size. Reliable quantitative data on even some of the fundamental aspects of the platform economy has been unavailable. Platform companies have been notoriously averse to publishing open datasets, and the dispersed nature of the platforms and their workforces has made data collection particularly challenging. Innovative methodologies of data collection are urgent.</p>
<p>Another reason for the increasing attention has been the increasing embeddedness of platforms in urban infrastructures, and their central role in urban life. Several camps building approaches to and analyses of the platform economy have already been set-up across and within disciplines. Economists have offered a narrative of platform work that emphasises efficiency and opportunity, with some discussion of disruption of employment relations. Sociological work has focused on two main topics to explain outcomes for platform work—precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labour, and technological control via algorithms. Both of these suggest exploitative experiences of platform labour.</p>
<p>Despite a global proliferation of digital platforms and their integration within numerous urban operations, much of the examination around these tools has tended to focus on their implementation within northern cities. Qualitative work in southern contexts is growing, and has been rich, but has often used similar analytical lenses as work in the North. This is showcased by the outsized attention paid in scholarship to models of labour platformisation referred to with the monikers ‘Uberisation’ and ‘Uber for X’, which limit the imagination of the platform economy to on-demand work. This research team’s work of platformisation in the domestic work sector in India has shown how such work, while crucial, essentialises a male and techno-centric formulation of the experiences of platform labour. There is an urgent need for a southern-led analytic approach to platform economies, which emphasises labour force intersectionalities, informalities in southern contexts, connections to conventional labour markets economics and regulation, and institutional voids in southern economies.</p>
<h3>Hypothesis and research questions</h3>
<p>The central hypothesis for this research project is that the generation of systematic macro-level data and robust regulatory documentation will lead to effective policy-making and advocacy. This can achieve secure and gainful labour market outcomes for workers in rapidly digitising southern economies. Achieving these outcomes will require multi-pronged strategies that can create pathways for structural changes. Such strategies include top-down approaches which will support regulatory and legislative policies, and judicial action through evidence-building. We will also focus on the embedding of bottom-up approaches in regulatory processes such as through workers’ organisation and resistance.</p>
<p>The broad research questions for this project are:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the determinants and characteristics, historical and emergent, of digital platform entities’ recruitment, workforce management and economic value creation strategies?<br /><br /></li>
<li>What institutional roles, vis-à-vis civil society, markets and the state, are digital platform entities in the global south(s) occupying and seeking to occupy?<br /><br /></li>
<li>What are (a) regulatory, (b) corporate policy and (c) individual/collective labour responses that can generate equitable and gainful outcomes for workers in the digital platform economies?</li></ul>
<h3>Research team</h3>
<p>The research project will be led by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, along with Amber Sinha. Shayna Robinson, from the Internet Society Foundation, will be supporting our endeavours.</p>
<h3>Work with us</h3>
<p>The success of this project will be contingent on inter/trans-disciplinary approaches to generate sustainable and gainful work outcomes for the bodies labouring in the platform economies. In addition to stakeholder groups directly engaged in the platform economies, we plan to work with a diverse set of individuals and groups, including public interest technologists, economists, practitioners, labour and technology historians, and designers.</p>
<p>If you are interested in contributing to this project and collaborating on similar agendas, do reach out to either Aayush Rathi (<a href="mailto:aayush@cis-india.org">aayush@cis-india.org</a>) or Ambika Tandon (<a href="mailto:ambika@cis-india.org">ambika@cis-india.org</a>).</p>
<p>Do keep an eye out on CIS’s website and social media handles for listings of specific work opportunities on this and other projects. One such opportunity is <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/call-for-applications-researcher-labour-and-digitisation" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonDigital LabourLabour FuturesDigital Economy2021-01-27T08:43:36ZBlog EntryCIS Seminar Series: Information Disorder
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-seminar-series-information-disorder
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society is announcing the launch of a seminar series to showcase research around digital rights and technology policy, with a focus on the Global South.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The CIS seminar series will be a venue for researchers to share works-in-progress, exchange ideas, identify avenues for collaboration, and curate research. We also seek to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on research exchange, and foster collaborations among researchers and academics from diverse geographies. Every quarter we will be hosting a remote seminar with presentations, discussions and debate on a thematic area.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> </strong></p>
<h3><strong>Seminar format</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We are happy to welcome abstracts for one of two tracks:</p>
<h3>Working paper presentation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> A working paper presentation would ideally involve a working draft that is presented for about 15 minutes followed by feedback from workshop participants. Abstracts for this track should be 600-800 words in length with clear research questions, methodology, and questions for discussion at the seminar. Ideally, for this track, authors should be able to submit a draft paper two weeks before the conference for circulation to participants.</p>
<h3> Coffee-shop conversations</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In contrast to the formal paper presentation format, the point of the coffee-shop conversations is to enable an informal space for presentation and discussion of ideas. Simply put, it is an opportunity for researchers to “think out loud” and get feedback on future research agendas. Provocations for this should be 100-150 words containing a short description of the idea you want to discuss.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We will try to accommodate as many abstracts as possible given time constraints. We welcome submissions from students and early career researchers, especially those from under-represented communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>All discussions will be private and conducted under the Chatham House Rule. Drafts will only be circulated among registered participants.</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please send all abstracts to <a href="mailto:workshops@cis-india.org">workshops@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<h3>Theme for the first seminar (to be held on an online platform)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The first seminar will be centered around the theme of ‘Information Disorder<strong>: <em>Mis-, Dis- and Malinformation</em>.’</strong> While the issue of information disorder, colloquially termed as ‘fake news’, has been in the political forefront for the last five years, the flawed attempts at countering the ‘infodemic’ brought about by the pandemic proves that there still continues to be substantial gaps in the body-of-knowledge on this issue. This includes research that proposes empirical, replicable methods of understanding the types, forms or nature of information disorder or research that attempts to understand regulatory approaches, the layers of production and the roles played by different agents in the spread of ‘fake news’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Accordingly, we invite submissions that address these gaps in knowledge, including those that examine the relationship between digital technology and information disorder across a spectrum of fields and disciplines. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Information disorders during COVID-19</li>
<li>Effects of coordinated campaigns on marginalised communities</li>
<li>Journalism, the State, and the trust in media </li>
<li>Platform responsibility in information disorder </li>
<li>Information disorder in international law/constitutional/human rights law</li>
<li>Information disorder as a geopolitical tool</li>
<li>Sociopolitical and cultural factors in user engagement</li></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Timeline</strong></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Abstract Submission Deadline: August 25th</li>
<li>Results of Abstract review: September 8th</li>
<li>Full submissions (of draft papers): September 30th</li>
<li>Seminar date: Tentatively October 7th</li></ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<h3><strong>Contact details</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">For any queries please contact us at <a href="mailto:workshops@cis-india.org">workshops@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-seminar-series-information-disorder'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-seminar-series-information-disorder</a>
</p>
No publisheramanDigital EconomyDigital AccessInternet GovernanceDigital DisruptionInformation Technology2021-08-11T11:17:57ZPageInputs to the Report on the Non-Personal Data Governance Framework
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework
<b>This submission presents a response by researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) to the draft Report on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework prepared by the Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan. The inputs are authored by Aayush Rathi, Aman Nair, Ambika Tandon, Pallavi Bedi, Sapni Krishna, and Shweta Mohandas (in alphabetical order), and reviewed by Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Text of submitted inputs: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/cis-inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework" target="_blank">Read</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Report by the Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework: <a href="https://static.mygov.in/rest/s3fs-public/mygov_159453381955063671.pdf" target="_blank">Read</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<h2>Inputs</h2>
<h3>Clause 3.7 (v): The role of the Indian government in the operation of data markets</h3>
<p>While highlighting the potential for India to be one of the top consumer and data markets of the world, it also sheds light on the concern about the possibility of data monopolies. The clause envisions the role of the Indian government as a regulator and a catalyst for domestic data markets.</p>
<p>In doing so, the clause does not acknowledge that the proactive and dominant roles of the Indian government in generation and reuse of data, based on the existing data collection practices, as well as the provisions that have been given, as under the compulsory sharing provisions in the Report, and would continue to be given by the Personal Data Protection Bill. In reality, the Indian government’s role is not just of a catalyst but also of a key player, potentially with monopolistic market power, in the domestic data market, especially due to the ongoing data marketplace initiatives as detailed in published policy and vision documents. [1]</p>
<h3>Clause 3.8 (iv): Introducing collective privacy</h3>
<p>The introduction of collective privacy has initiated an overdue discussion at the policy level to arrive at privacy formulations that account for limitations in the contemporary dominant social, legal and ethical paradigms of privacy premised on individual interests and personal harm. The notion of collective privacy has garnered contemporary attention with the rise of data processing technologies and business models that thrive on the collection and processing of aggregate information.</p>
<p>While the Report acknowledges that collective privacy is an evolving concept, it doesn’t attempt to define either collective or what privacy could entail in the context of a collective. The postulation of collective privacy as a legally binding right is bereft with challenges in both domestic and international legal frameworks. [2]</p>
<p>Central to these challenges is the representation of the group of the entity. While the Report illustrates harms that may be incurred by certain collectives that collective privacy could protect against, these illustrated collectives are already recognised in law as rights-holding groups (society members, for example), and/or share pre-determined attributes (sexual orientation, for example).</p>
<p>The Report does not acknowledge that the very technological processes that may have rendered the articulation of collective privacy necessary, also are intended to create ad-hoc and newer sets of individuals or groups with shared attributes. [3] In doing so, the Report furthers an ontology of groups having intuitive, predetermined attributes that exist naturally, or in law, whereas the intervention of data collection and processing technologies can determine shared group attributes afresh. Moreover, the Report also ignores that predetermined attributes are static, and in doing so, ignores a vast existing literature speaking to fluidity of identities and the intersectionality of identities that individuals in groups occupy. [4] We fully appreciate the challenges these pose in the determination of the legal contours of collective privacy. Much of the Report’s recommendations are premised on the idea of a predetermined collective, rendering more granular exploration of these ideas urgent.</p>
<p>Further, the Report also puts forth a limited conception of privacy as a safeguard against data-related harms that may be caused to collectives. In doing so, it dilutes the conceptualisation of individual privacy as articulated in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Anr. vs Union Of India And Ors. Notwithstanding this dilution, the illustrations also only indicate harms that may be caused by private actors. Any further recommendations should envision the harms that may also be caused by public data-driven processes, such as those incubated within the state machinery.</p>
<h3>Clause 4.1 (iii) and Recommendation 1: Defining Non-Personal Data</h3>
<p>The Report proposes the definition of non-personal data to include (i) data that was never related to an identified or identifiable natural person, and (ii) aggregated, anonymised personal data such that individual events are “no longer identifiable”. In doing so, they have attempted to extend protections to categories of data that fall outside the ambit of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (hereafter “PDP Bill”). The Report is cognizant of the fallible nature of anonymization techniques but fails to indicate how these may be addressed.
The test of anonymization in regarding data as non-personal data requires further clarification. Anonymization, in and of itself, is an ambiguous standard. Scholarship has indicated that anonymised data may never be completely anonymous. [5] Despite this, the PDP Bill proposes a high threshold of zero-risk of anonymization in relation to personal data, to mean “such irreversible process of transforming or converting personal data to a form in which a data principal cannot be identified”. From a plain reading, it appears that the Report proposes a lower threshold of the anonymization requirements governing non-personal data. It is unclear how non-personal data would then be different from inferred data as described within the definition of personal data under the PDP Bill. This adds regulatory uncertainty making it imperative for the Committee to articulate bright-line, risk-based principles and rules for the test of anonymization. Such rules should also indicate the factors that ought to be taken into account to determine whether anonymization has occurred and the timescale of reference for anonymization outcomes. [6]</p>
<p>The recommendation also states that the data principal should "also provide consent for anonymisation and usage of this anonymized data while providing consent for collection and usage of his/her personal data". However the framing of this recommendation fails to mention the responsibility of the data fiduciary to provide notice to the data principal about the usage of the anonymized data while seeking the data principal’s consent for anonymization. The notice provided to the data principal should provide clear indication that consent of the data principal is based on their knowledge of the use of the anonymized data.</p>
<h3>Clause 4.8 (i), (ii): Function of data custodians</h3>
<p>The Report does not make it clear who may perform the role of data custodians. The use of data fiduciary indicates the potential import of the definition of ‘data fiduciary’ as specified under Clause 3.13 of the PDP Bill. However, this needs to be further clarified.</p>
<h3>Clause 4.8 (iii): Data custodians’ “duty of care”</h3>
As is outlined in the following section on data trustees, it can be difficult for a singular entity to maintain a duty of care and undertake actions with the best interest of a community when that community consists of sub-communities that may be marginalised.
Further, ‘duty of care’, ‘best interest’, and ‘absence of harm’ are not sufficient standards for data processing by data custodians. Recommendations to the effect of obligating data custodians to uphold the rights of data principals, including economic and fundamental rights need to be incorporated in the framework.
<h3>Clause 4.9: Data trustees</h3>
<p>The committee’s suggestion that the “most appropriate representative body” should be the data trustee—that often being either the corresponding government entity or community body— is reasonable at face value. However, in the absence of any clear principles defining what constitutes “most appropriate” there are a number of potential issues that can appear:</p>
<p><strong>Lack of means for selecting a data trustee:</strong> The report makes note of the fact that both private and public entities can be selected to be data trustees but offers no principles on how these data trustees can be selected, i.e. whether they are to be directly selected by the members of a community, and if so how. Any selection criteria or process prescribed has to keep in mind the following point regarding the potential lack of representation for marginalised communities that could arise from a direct selection of a data trustee by a group of people.</p>
<p><strong>Issues of having a single data trustee for large scale communities and when dealing with marginalised communities:</strong> The report assumes that in instances wherein a community is spread across a geographic region, or consists of multiple sub-communities, then the data trustee will be the closest shared government authority (for example, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India being the data trustee for data regarding diabetes among Indian citizens).</p>
<p><strong>This idea of a singular data trustee assumes that the ‘best interests’ of a community are uniform across that community. This can prove problematic especially when dealing with data obtained from marginalised communities that forms a part of a wider dataset.</strong> It is entirely possible to imagine that a smaller disenfranchised community may have interests that are not aligned with the general majority. In such a situation the Report is unclear as to whether the data trustee would have to ensure that the best interests of all groups are maintained, or would they be responsible for ensuring the best interests of the largest number of people within that community.
There are power differentials between citizens, government agencies, and other entities described by the Report. This places citizens at risk of abuse of power by government entities in their role as trustees, who are effectively being empowered through this policy framework as opposed to a representative mechanism. It is recommended that data trustees be appointed by relevant communities through clear and representative mechanisms. Additionally, any individual should be able to file complaints regarding the discharge of community trust by data trustees. This is necessary as any subsequent rights vested in the community can only be exercised through the data trustee, and become unenforceable in the lack of an appropriate data trustee.</p>
<p>Any legislation that arises on the basis of this report will therefore have to not only provide a means for selecting the data trustee, but also safeguards for ensuring that data collected from marginalised communities are used keeping in mind their specific best interests—with these best interests being informed through consultation with that community.</p>
<h3>Clause 4.10 (iii): Data trusts</h3>
<p>Section 4.10 (iii) notes that data custodians may voluntarily share data in these data trusts. However it is unclear if such sharing must be done with the express consent of the relevant data trustee.</p>
<h3>Clause 4.10 (iv): Mandatory sharing and competition</h3>
<p>The fundamental premise of a mandatory data sharing regime seems increasingly distant from its practical impacts. The EU which earlier championed the cause now seems reluctant to further it on the face of studies which skews towards counteractive impacts of such steps. Such steps could apply to huge volumes of first-party data companies collect on their own assets, products and services, even though such data are among the least likely to create barriers to entry or contribute to abuses of dominant positions. [7] This is hence likely to bring in more chilling effect on innovation and investment than a pro-competition environment. The velocity of big data also adds to the futility of such data sharing mandates. [8] It is recommended that a sectoral analysis of this mandate be undertaken instead of an overarching stipulation.</p>
<p>The Report suggests extensive data sharing without addressing the extent of obligation on the private players to submit to these requests and process them. The availability of meta-data about the data collected may be made easily accessible under mandates of transparency. However, the access to the detailed underlying data will be difficult in most cases due to the current structure of entities functioning in cyberspace, evidenced by the lack of compliance to such mandates by Courts of Law in the EU. Such a system can easily eliminate the comparative advantage of smaller players, helping larger players with more money at their disposal enabling their growth and throttling the smaller players. It could have serious implications on data quality and integrity through the sharing of erroneous data. Access to superior quality digital services in India may also have to be compromised. If this regime is furthered without amends to address these concerns, it might end up counter productive.</p>
<h3>Clause 5.1 (iv): Grievance redressal against state’s role</h3>
<p>This clause acknowledges the vast potential for government authorities and other bodies to abuse their power as data trustee. In addition, it should describe the setting up of impartial and accessible mechanisms for citizens to complain against such abuse of power and appropriate penalties, including the removal of the data trustee.</p>
<h3>Chapter 7, Recommendation 5: Purpose of data-sharing</h3>
<p>Recommendation 5 leaves scope for “national security” as a sovereign purpose for data sharing. This continues to be in line with the trend of having an overarching national security clause, as in the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019. There could be provisions made to enable access to data for sovereign purposes without such broad definition, replacing it based on constitutional terms which will limit it to the confines laid down in the Constitution. This will effectively curb any misuse of the provision and strongly embed the proposed regulation of non-personal data on constitutional ethos. This can also prevent future conflicts with the fundamental rights.</p>
<p>Platform companies have leveraged their position in society to take on an ever-greater number of quasi-public functions, exercising new forms of unaccountable, transnational authority. It is not difficult to imagine that this trend can continue to non-platform companies, or even taken forward by these very entities which also have access to a large chunk of non-personal data. A strict division between sovereign purposes and core public interest purposes seems difficult. However, it is imperative to have a clearer definition of core public interest purposes and sovereign purposes. The broad based definition may facilitate reduced accountability. Separating government actions from sovereign purposes could bring forth the power imbalance between the State and its people, while in the case of the non-governmental entities, it will facilitate encroachment of government functions by private players. Both these cases may not consider the best interest of the data generators, or the people at large.</p>
<h3>Clause 7.1 (i): Data needs of law enforcement</h3>
<p>Clause 7.1 (i) allows for acquisition of data governed by this framework for crime mapping, devising anticipation and preventive measures, and for investigations and law enforcement. While this may be necessary to be granted to law enforcement in certain cases, this should happen only with an express permission of a court of law. Blanket executive access allows higher possibility of misuse by the people involved in law enforcement.</p>
<h3>Clause 7.2 (iv): Use of health data as a pilot</h3>
<p>The clause suggests the use of health sector data as a pilot use-case. This is highly undesirable due to the inherent nature of high sensitivity of the larger part of data related to the health sector. The high vulnerability of such data to harm the data principals should act as a deterrent in using this as the pilot use-case. Given the mass availability of data related to the health sector due to the pandemic, it creates further points of vulnerabilities which can be illegally monetised and misappropriated. It is recommended that this proposal be scrapped altogether.</p>
<h3>Clause 7.2 (iii): Power of government bodies</h3>
<p>As per this clause, data trustees or government bodies (who could also be acting as data trustees) can make requests for data sharing and place such data in appropriate data infrastructures or trusts. This presents a conflict of interest, as a data trust or government body can empower itself to be the data trustee. Such cases should be addressed within the scope of the framework.</p>
<h3>Clause 8.2 (vii): Level-playing field for all Indian actors</h3>
<p>In terms of this clause the “Non-Personal Data Authority (Authority) will ensure a level playing field for all Indian actors to fulfil the objective of maximising Indian data’s value to the Indian economy”. The emphasis on ensuring a level playing field for only Indian actors instead of non-discriminatory platform for all concerned actors irrespective of the country/nationality of the actor has the potential of violating India’s trade obligations under the WTO. Member states of the WTO are essentially restricted from discriminating between products and services coming from different WTO Members, and between foreign and domestic products and services unless they can avail of exceptions. There is also no clarity on what constitutes ‘Indian Actors’, would a Multi-National Corporation with its headquarters in a foreign State, but its subsidiaries in India also come within its ambit.</p>
<h3>Clause 8.2 (x): Composition of the Authority</h3>
<p>Clause 8.2 (x) states that the Authority will have some members with relevant industry experience. However, apart from this clause, the report is silent on the composition of the Authority. The report recognises that Authority will need individuals/organisations with specialised knowledge, i.e. data governance, technology, latest research and innovation in the field of non-personal data), however, it does not mention or refer to the role of civil society organisations and the need for representation from such organisations in the Authority.</p>
<p>The report frequently alludes to non-personal data being used for the best interest of the data principal and therefore, it is essential that the composition of the Authority reflect the inherent asymmetry of power between the data principal and the State. Considering that the Authority will also be responsible for sharing of community data and with determining the code of conduct for sharing of such data, it is important that the Authority also has adequate representation from civil society organisations along with groups or individuals having the necessary technological and legal skills.</p>
<h3>Clause 8.2 (iii) and (vi): Roles and Responsibility of the Authority</h3>
<p>A majority of the datasets in the country comprise of ‘mixed datasets’, i.e. it consists of both personal and non-personal data. However, there is lack of clarity about the coordination between the Data Protection Authority constituted under the PDP Bill and the Non-Personal Data Authority with regard to the regulation of such datasets. The Report refers to the European Union which provides that the Non-Personal Data Regulation applies to the Non-Personal Data of mixed datasets; if the Non-Personal Data part and the personal data parts are ‘inextricably linked’, the General Data Protection Regulation apply to the whole mixed dataset. However, it is unclear whether the Report also proposes the same mechanism for the regulation of mixed datasets.</p>
<p>Further, the contours of the enforcement role of the Committee should be specified and clearly laid down. Will the Committee also have penal powers as prescribed for the Data Protection Authority under the PDP Bill? Also, will the privacy concerns emanating from the risk of re-anonymisation of data be addressed by the NPD Committee or by the DPA under the PDP Bill. Ideally, it should be specified that any such privacy concerns will fall within the domain of the DPA as the data is then converted into personal data and the DPA will be empowered to deal with such issues.</p>
<h3>Endnotes</h3>
<p>[1] See Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. (2020). National Digital Health Blueprint. Government of India. <a href="https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20NDHB%20report_0.pdf">https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20NDHB%20report_0.pdf</a>; Tandon, A. (2019). Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System. <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts">https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts</a></p>
<p>[2] Taylor, L., Floridi, L., van der Sloot, B. eds. (2017) Group Privacy: new challenges of data technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.</p>
<p>[3] Mittelstadt, B. (2017). From Individual to Group Privacy in Big Data Analytics. Philos. Technol. 30, 475–494.</p>
<p>[4] See Taylor, L., Floridi, L., van der Sloot, B. eds. (2017) Group Privacy: new challenges of data technologies. Dordrecht: Springer; Tisne, M. (n.d). The Data Delusion: Protecting Individual Data Isn't Enough When The Harm is Collective. Stanford Cyber Policy Centre. <a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/data-delusion">https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/data-delusion</a></p>
<p>[5] Rocher, L., Hendrickx, J.M. & de Montjoye, Y. (2019). Estimating the success of re-identifications in incomplete datasets using generative models. Nat Commun 10, 3069 . <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10933-3">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10933-3</a></p>
<p>[6] Finck, M. & Pallas, F. (2020). They who must not be identified—distinguishing personal from non-personal data under the GDPR. International Data Privacy Law, 10 (1), 11–36. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz026">https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipz026</a></p>
<p>[7] European Commission (2020). Communication From The Commission To The European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic And Social Committee And The Committee Of The Regions: A European strategy for data. <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1593073685620&uri=CELEX:52020DC0066">https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1593073685620&uri=CELEX:52020DC0066</a></p>
<p>[8] Modrall, Jay. (2019). Antitrust risks and Big Data. Norton Rose Fullbright. <a href="https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en-in/knowledge/publications/64c13505/antitrust-risks-and-big-data">https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en-in/knowledge/publications/64c13505/antitrust-risks-and-big-data</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroData SystemsPrivacyResearchers at WorkDigital EconomyData GovernanceSubmissions2020-12-30T09:40:52ZBlog EntryIFAT and ITF - Locking Down the Impact of Covid-19
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19
<b>This report, by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, explores the responses to the outbreak of Covid-19 by digital platform based companies, trade unions, and governments to help out workers for digital platform based companies hereafter app based workers during the lockdown. The research work in this article is a characterization of the struggles of app based workers during the global pandemic and how it has affected and changed the world of work for them. The surveys were conducted amongst the workforce working for app based companies like Ola, Uber, Swiggy, Zomato etc. This study is partially supported by CIS as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Report: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19-report/" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Press Release: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19-press-release/" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>Press Release, 17 September, 2020</h3>
<p><br />Between March and June 2020, IFAT and ITF conducted 4 surveys with transport and delivery workers to assess (i) their income levels during the Covid-19 pandemic, (ii) the burden of loan repayment during these months, (iii) the relief provided to them by companies, and (iv) the access to welfare schemes offered by state and central governments.</p>
<p>The first survey, on income levels and loans administered in March 2020, had 5964 respondents, across 55 cities, in 16 states. The second and third surveys conducted in April 2020, on financial relief from companies and governments, had 1630 respondents, across 59 cities, in 16 states. The fourth survey was conducted in June 2020 to assess income levels as the economies were slowing opening up. Some of the most startling findings from the 4 surveys are:</p>
<ul>
<li>The average monthly EMI of the respondents in March 2020 was between Rs. 10,000 - 20,000. 51% of the respondents had taken vehicle loans from 19 national public sector banks.<br /><br /></li>
<li>30.3% of the respondents worked between 40-50 hours a week, in the week prior to the first national lockdown. Despite high hours of work, the average income of the drivers for the week commencing April 15, 2020 was less than Rs. 2500. 57% of respondents earned between 0 to Rs. 2250.<br /><br /></li>
<li>89.8% of workers did not receive any ration or food assistance, and 84.5% did not receive any financial assistance from either companies or governments.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Where companies had announced financial assistance programmes, including through donations collected by customers, there was no transparency in disbursement of funds. Other reasons for exclusion included administrative red tape (such as the requirement to produce bills that are GST compliant), and absence of clear criteria for eligibility, leading to random disbursement, among others.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Ola announced waiving off the rental amount for leased vehicles, and asked drivers to return such vehicles. However, there was no announcement of a plan to repossess vehicles once there was an easing of the lockdown, causing great anxiety among workers.<br /><br /></li>
<li>After the easing of the national lockdown, 69.7% of respondents indicated that they had no earnings, while 20% earned between Rs.500 to 1500.<br /><br /></li>
<li>2716 respondents from 19 states across gig platforms articulated their support for a peaceful demonstration against company practices.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Mandatory installation of Aarogya Setu by workers raised concerns of privacy, as this would allow companies to surveil workers and collect data on their movements after work hours.</li>
</ul>
<p>IFAT organised several meetings and protests after each survey, to bring attention to the vulnerable conditions of workers. At these gatherings, workers raised the following key demands:</p>
<ul>
<li>Companies must reduce commission rates to 5%, to allow workers to get back on their feet, and compensate for losses over the past few months;<br /><br /></li>
<li>Adequate protective equipment and health insurance cover to all drivers must be provided;<br /><br /></li>
<li>There must be increased transparency in disbursement process of funds, and in the criteria for selection of beneficiaries;<br /><br /></li>
<li>Compounded interest must be waived on EMIs for the 3 months of moratorium on loan repayment.</li>
</ul>
<p>Hear our voices and address our demands.</p>
<p><br /><em>Shaik Salauddin</em></p>
<p>National General Secretary, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)</p>
<p>Phone: +91 96424 24799</p>
<p><br /><strong>Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers</strong></p>
<p>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/connectifat/" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/watch/connectifat/</a></p>
<p>Twitter: <a href="https://www.twitter.com/connect_ifat" target="_blank">www.twitter.com/connect_ifat</a></p>
<p>YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1AxGq0Fb_A_O_Ey44eiPg" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1AxGq0Fb_A_O_Ey44eiPg</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/ifat-itf-locking-down-the-impact-of-covid-19</a>
</p>
No publisherIndian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi officeDigital EconomyResearchers at WorkDigital LabourCovid19ResearchPlatform-WorkFeaturedHomepage2021-06-29T07:27:09ZBlog EntryPlatformisation of Domestic Work in India: Report from a Multistakeholder Consultation
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation
<b>On November 16, 2019, The Centre for Internet and Society invited officials from the Department of Labour (Government of Karnataka), members of domestic worker unions, domestic workers, company representatives, and civil society researchers at the Student Christian Mission of India House to discuss preliminary findings of an ongoing research project and facilitate a multistakeholder consultation to understand the contemporaneous platformisation of domestic work in India. Please find here a report from this consultation authored by Tasneem Mewa. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Report from the consultation: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-february-2020/" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Agenda and details of the consultation: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116" target="_blank">URL</a></h4>
<hr />
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>On November 16, 2019, The Centre for Internet and Society invited officials from the Department of Labour (Government of Karnataka), members of domestic worker unions, domestic workers, company representatives, and civil society researchers at the Student Christian Mission of India House to discuss preliminary findings of an
ongoing research project and facilitate a multistakeholder consultation to understand the contemporaneous platformisation of domestic work in India.</p>
<p>This collaborative project is being led by the the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) together with Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU) in Bangalore. The research team comprises of Geeta Menon, Parijatha G.P., Sumathi, Radha K., and Zennathunnisa from DWRU, and Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon from CIS. Through a collective research process, this research team has explored the proliferation of digital platforms as a key intermediary in the domestic work sector, and in supporting or challenging deeply rooted structural inequities. For more information on the research project, see the project announcement published on the CIS website [1]. This work forms part of the Association for Progressive Communications’ <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network" target="_blank">Feminist Internet Research Network</a> project, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.</p>
<p>The multistakeholder consultation was structured in two segments: a) a presentation outlining initial observations and analysis, and b) a semi-moderated open discussion. Together, these sessions aimed to initiate conversations pertaining to the role of digital platforms, the legal classification of domestic and gig workers, and devising regulatory solutions to improve conditions of work. Preliminary findings were based on qualitative in-depth interviews with workers, platform companies, unions, skilling agencies, and labour officials in both Bengaluru and
New Delhi. Feminist approaches were employed in conducting these interviews, and participatory, consensual, reflexive and collaborative research was prioritised.</p>
<p>Situating the lived realities of domestic workers, the event sought to centre the voice of domestic workers in the consultation around the future of their work. The event had attendance from multilingual attendees. The original presentation was made in English, and Geeta Menon translated the presentation and the discussion that followed in Kannada [2].</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Footnotes</h3>
<p>[1] Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019, October 1). Digital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project
Announcement. Retrieved from <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement</a></p>
<p>[2] Rathi, A. (2019, November 16). Domestic Work in the 'Gig Economy'. Retrieved from
<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116</a>; Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019).
Domestic workers in the ‘gig’ economy [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation</a>
</p>
No publishertasneemDigital EconomyRAW EventsDigital LabourResearchResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2020-02-17T09:46:52ZBlog EntryDomestic Work in the ‘Gig Economy’
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116
<b>The CIS and Domestic Workers’ Rights Union (DWRU) are hosting a discussion on the ‘gig economy’ and domestic work on Saturday, November 16 at Student Christian Movement of India, Mission Road, Bangalore. This event is a part of a project supported by the Feminist Internet Research Network led by Association for Progressive Communication (APC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/FutureofWork.jpeg" alt="Domestic work in the gig economy, 16 December 2019, Student Christian Mission of India, Bangalore" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h4>Presentation: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation" class="internal-link" title="Domestic Work and Platforms Presentation">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Concept Note: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-dwru-apc-firn-domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-concept-note" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Venue: Student Christian Movement of India (29, 2nd Cross, CSI Compound, Mission Road, Sampangi Rama Nagara)</h4>
<h4>Date and Time: Saturday, November 16, 3:00-5:30 pm</h4>
<h4>Location: <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/dCnQhid1eiyLG3DE6" target="_blank">URL</a> (Google Maps)</h4>
<h4>Feminist Internet Research Network: <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network" target="_blank">URL</a></h4>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Over the last few months, the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) and the Domestic Workers’ Rights Union (DWRU) have been doing research on the platformisation of domestic work in India. In the first phase of the research, we gathered data through interviews with several stakeholders. More information about the project can be found here: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We now find ourselves in the second phase of the research in which we have prepared a preliminary report and are seeking feedback and inputs from experts. For this, we invite you to a roundtable discussion on domestic workers in the ‘gig economy’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The participants at the roundtable will comprise of representatives from key stakeholder groups including platform workers (i.e. domestic workers sourcing jobs through platforms), platform companies, domestic workers organisations, civil society researchers and the state labour department.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The event will begin with a presentation of the project and our initial findings. The rest of the time is set aside for a semi-moderated discussion between all participants. To ensure a focused discussion, we are also limiting participation to 30, and are hoping to have a good mix across stakeholder groups.</p>
<h4>If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Aayush Rathi at aayush@cis-india.org.</h4>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116</a>
</p>
No publisheraayushDigital EconomyRAW EventsDigital LabourResearchers at WorkEventDigital Domestic Work2019-12-06T04:52:11ZEventDoing Standpoint Theory
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/doing-standpoint-theory
<b>Feminist research methodology has evolved from different epistemologies, with several different schools of thought. Some of the more popular ones are feminist standpoint theory, feminist empiricism, and feminist relativism. Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power. In this essay published on the GenderIT website, Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi [1] discuss the practical applicability of these epistemologies to research practices in the field of technology and gender.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Cross-posted from <a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/doing-standpoint-theory" target="_blank">GenderIT</a>, September 1, 2019</h4>
<hr />
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/CatalinaAlzate.jpg/image" alt="Catalina Alzate - Speech Bubbles" class="image-left image-inline" title="Catalina Alzate - Speech Bubbles" /></p>
<h6>Image description: Three speech bubbles on different textures. Artist: <a href="https://www.genderit.org/users/catalina-alzate" target="_blank">Catalina Alzate</a><br /></h6>
<p>Feminist research methodology has evolved from different epistemologies, with several different schools of thought. Some of the more popular ones are feminist standpoint theory, feminist empiricism, and feminist relativism. Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power [2]. Feminist empiricism does not eschew traditional modes of knowledge production, but emphasises diversity of research participants for feminist (and therefore also rigorous) knowledge production [3]. Relativists have critiqued standpoint theory for its tendency to essentialise the experience of marginalised groups, and subsume them into one homogenous voice to achieve the goal of ‘emancipatory’ research [4]. Relativists instead focus on multiple standpoints, which could be Dalit women, lesbian women, or women with disabilities [5]. We will be discussing the practical applicability of these epistemologies to research practices in the field of technology and gender.</p>
<h4>Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power.</h4>
<p>As part of the Feminist Internet Research Network, the Centre for Internet and Society is undertaking research on the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement" target="_blank">digital mediation of domestic and care work in India</a>. The project aims to assess shifts in the sector, including conditions of work, brought on by the entry of digital platforms. Our starting point for designing a methodology for the research was standpoint theory, which we thought to be the best fit as the goal of the project was to disrupt dominant narratives of women’s labour in relation to platformisation. In the context of dalit feminis, Rege warns that standpoint research risks producing a narrow frame of identity politics, although it is critical to pay attention to lived experience and the “naming of difference” between dalit women and savarna women [6]. She asserts that neither ‘women’ nor ‘dalit women’ is a homogenous category. While feminist researchers from outside these categories cannot claim to “speak for” those within, they can “reinvent” themselves as dalit feminists and ally themselves with their politics.</p>
<p>In order to address this risk of appropriating the voices of domestic workers (“speaking for”), we chose to directly work with a domestic workers’ union in Bengaluru called Stree Jagruti Smiti. Bengaluru is one of the two cities we are conducting research in (the other being Delhi, with very few registered unions). This is meant to radically destabilise power hierarchies and material relations within the research process, as benefits of participatory research tend to accumulate with the researchers rather than participants [7].</p>
<p>Along with amplifying the voices of workers, a central objective of our project is to question the techno-solutionism that has accompanied the entry of digital platforms into the domestic work sector, which is unorganised and unregulated. To do so, we included companies and state labour departments as participants whose standpoint is to be interrogated. By juxtaposing the standpoints of stakeholders that have differential access to power and resources, the researcher is able to surface various conflicts and intersections in dominant and alternative narratives. This form of research also brings with it unique challenges, as researchers could find themselves mediating between the different stakeholders, while constantly choosing to privilege the standpoint of the least powerful - in this case the workers. Self-reflexivity then becomes necessary to ensure that the project does not slip into an absolutely relativist position, rather using the narratives of workers to challenge those of governments and private actors. This can also be done by ensuring that workers have agency to shape the agenda of researchers, thereby producing research which is instrumental in supporting grassroots campaigns and movements.</p>
<h4>Self-reflexivity then becomes necessary to ensure that the project does not slip into an absolutely relativist position, rather using the narratives of workers to challenge those of governments and private actors.</h4>
<p>Feminist participatory research itself, despite its many promises, is not a linear pathway to empowerment for participants [8]. At the very outset of the project, we were constantly asked the question by domestic workers and unions – why should we participate in this project? Researchers, in their experience, acquire information from the community throughout the process of data collection by positioning themselves as allies. However, as all such engagements are bound to limited timelines and budgets, researchers are then often absent at critical junctures where the community may need external support. We were also told that all too often, the output of the research itself does not make its way back to the participants, making it a one-way process of knowledge extraction. Being mindful of these experiences, we have integrated a feedback loop into our research design, which will allow us to design outputs that are accessible and useful to collectives of domestic workers.</p>
<p>Not only domestic workers and their organisations, many corporations operating these online portals and platforms often questioned the benefits of participating in the project. However, the manner of articulation differed. While attempting to reject the hierarchical nature of the researcher/participant relationship, we increasingly became aware that the underlying power equation was not a monolith. Rather, it varied across stakeholder groups and was explicitly contingent on the socially constructed positionalities already existing outside of the space of the interview. Companies, governments and workers all exemplified varying degrees of engagement with, knowledge of, and contributions to research. Interviews with workers and unions, and even some bootstrapped (i.e. without much external funding) , socially-minded companies, were often cathartic with an expectation of some benefits in return for opening themselves up to researchers. This was quite different for governments and larger companies, as conversations typically adhered to the patriarchal and classed notions of professionalism in sanitised, formal spaces [9] and the strict dichotomy between public and personal spaces. Their contribution seemingly required lesser affective engagement from the interviewee, thereby resulting in lesser investment in the outcome of the research itself.</p>
<p>The cathartic nature of interviews also speak to the impossibility of the distanced, Platonic, school of research. We were often asked politically charged questions, our advice solicited and information sought. Workers and representatives from platform companies alike would question our motivations with the research and challenge us by inquiring about the benefits accruing to us. Again, both set of stakeholders would often ask differently about how other platforms were; workers already registered on a platform would wonder if another platform would be ‘better’ and representatives of platform companies would be curious about competition. This is perhaps a consequence of attempting to design a study that is of use and of interest to the workers we have been reaching out to [10]. At times, we found ourselves at a place in the conversation where we were compelled to respond to political positions for the conversation to continue. There were interviews where notions of caste hierarchies (within oppressed classes) as a justification/complaint for engaging/having to engage in certain tasks would surface. Despite being beholden to a feminist consciousness that disregards the idea of the interviewer as neutral, we often found ourselves only hesitantly forthcoming. At times, it was to keep the interview broadly focused around the research subject, at others it was due to our own ignorance about the research artefact (in this instance, platforms mediating domestic work services). This underscores the challenges of seeing the interview as a value ridden space, where the contradictions between the interview as a data collection method and as a consciousness raising emerged - how could we share information about the artefact we were in the process of collecting data about?</p>
<h4>We were often asked politically charged questions, our advice solicited and information sought.</h4>
<p>The fostering of ‘rapport’ [11] has made its may into method, almost unknowingly. Often, respondents across stakeholder groups started from an initial place of hesitation, sometimes even suspicion. Several structural issues could be at work here - our inability in being able to accurately describe research itself, the class differences and at times, ideological ones as well. While with most participants, rapport was eventually established, its establishment was a laboured process. Especially given that we were using one-off, in-depth interviews as our method, securing an interview was contingent on the establishment of rapport. This isn’t to suggest that feminist research mandatorily requires the ‘doing of rapport’ [12], but that when it does, it’s a fortunate outcome and that feminist researchers engage with it more critically.</p>
<p>Building rapport creates an impression of having minimised the exploitation of the participant, however the underlying politics and pressures of building rapport need to be interrogated. Rapport, like research itself, is at times a performance; rapport is often not naturally occuring. Rather, rapport may also be built to conceal the very structural factors preventing it. For instance, during instances of ideological differences during the interview, we were at times complicit through our silence. This may have been to further a certain notion of ‘objectivity’ itself whereby the building and maintenance of rapport is essential to surfacing a participant’s real views. This then raises the questions: What are the ethical questions that the suppression of certain viewpoints and reactions pose? How does the building, maintenance and continuance of rapport inform the research findings? Rapport, then, comes in all shapes and sizes and its manifold forms implicate the research process differently. Another critical question to be addressed is - why does some rapport take less work than others? With platform companies, building rapport came by easier than it did with workers both on and off platforms. If understood as removing degrees of distance between the researcher and participants, several factors could play into the effort required to build rapport. For instance, language was a critical determinant of the ease of relationship-building. Being more fluent in English than in colloquial Hindi enabled clearer articulation of the research. Further, familiarity with the research process was, as expected, mediated along class lines. This influenced the manner in which we articulated research outcomes and objectives to workers with complete unfamiliarity with the meaning of research. Among workers, this unfamiliarity often resulted in distrust, which required the underlying politics of the research to be more critically articulated.</p>
<p>By and large, the feminist engagement with research methods has been quite successful in its resistance and transformation of traditional forms. Since Oakley’s conception of the interview as a deeply subjective space [13] and Harding’s dialectical conception of masculinist science through its history [14], the application of feminist critical theory has increasingly subverted assumptions around the averseness of research to political motivations. At the same time, it has made knowledge-production occur in a more equitable space. It is in this context that standpoint theory has had wide purchase, but challenges persist in its application. As the foregoing discussion outlines, we have been able to achieve some of the goals of feminist standpoint research while missing out on others. We also found the ‘multiple standpoints’ approach of relativists to be useful in a project involving multiple stakeholders - thereby also avoiding the risk of essentialisation of the identities of domestic workers. However, unlike the tendency of relativists to focus on each perspective as ‘equally valid truth’, we are choosing to focus on the conflicts and intersections between emerging discourses. Through this hybrid theoretical framework, we are seeking to make knowledge production more equitable. At the same time, the discussion around rapport shows that this may nevertheless happen in a limited fashion. Feminist research may never be fully non-extractive. The reflexivity exercised and choices made during the course of the research are key.</p>
<h4>Unlike the tendency of relativists to focus on each perspective as ‘equally valid truth’, we are choosing to focus on the conflicts and intersections between emerging discourses.</h4>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p>[1] The names of the authors are in alphabetical order.</p>
<p>[2] Harding, S. (2003) The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, Routledge.</p>
<p>[3] M. Wickramasinghe, Feminist Research Methodology: Making meaning out of meaning-making, Zubaan, 2014</p>
<p>[4] Pease, D. (2000) Researching profeminist men's narratives: participatory methodologies in a postmodern frame. In B. Fawcett, D. Featherstone, J. Fook ll)'ld A. Rossiter (eds) Restarching and Practising in Social Work: Postmodern Feminist Perspectives (London: Routledge).</p>
<p>[5] Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1983) Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).</p>
<p>[6] Rege, S. 1998. ” Dalit Women Talk Differently: A critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint.” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No.44, pp 39-48.</p>
<p>[7] Heeks, R. and Shekhar, S. (2018) An Applied Data Justice Framework: Analysing Datafication and Marginalised Communities in Cities of the Global South. Working Paper Series, Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester.</p>
<p>[8] Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawn and partners: disability research and the role of nondisabled researchers. British Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 699-716.</p>
<p>[9] Evans, L. (2010). Professionalism, professionality and the development of education professionals. Br. J. Educ. Stud. 56, 20–38. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2007.00392.x</p>
<p>[10] Webb C. Feminist methodology in nursing research. J Adv Nurs. 1984 May;9(3):249-56.</p>
<p>[11] Berger, R. (2015). Now I see it, now I don’t: researcher’s position and reflexivity in qualitative research. Qual. Res. 15, 219–234. doi:10.1177/1468794112468475; Pitts, M. J., and Miller-Day, M. (2007). Upward turning points and positive rapport development across time in researcher-participant relationships. Qual. Res. 7, 177–201. doi:10.1177/1468794107071409</p>
<p>[12] Dunscombe, J., and Jessop, J. (2002). “Doing rapport, and the ethics of ’faking friendship’,” in Ethics in Qualitative Research, eds T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner, and J. Jessop (London: SAGE), 108–121.</p>
<p>[13] Oakley, A. (1981). “Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms?” in Doing Feminist Research, ed. H. Roberts (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 30–61.</p>
<p>[14] Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/doing-standpoint-theory'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/doing-standpoint-theory</a>
</p>
No publisherAmbika Tandon and Aayush RathiDigital EconomyGenderDigital LabourResearchPublicationsResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2019-12-06T04:59:35ZBlog EntryDigital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project Announcement
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement
<b>It is our great pleasure to announce that we are undertaking a study on digital mediation of domestic and care work in India, as part of and supported by the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The study is exploring the ways in which structural inequalities, such as those of gender and class, are being reproduced or challenged by digital
platforms. The project sites are Delhi and Bangalore, where we are conducting interviews with workers, companies, and unions. In Bangalore, we are collaborating with Stree Jagruti Samiti to collect qualitative data from different stakeholders. The outputs of the research will include a report, policy brief, and other communication materials in English, Hindi, and Kannada. This study is being led by Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi, along with Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Feminist Internet Research Network: <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network" target="_blank">apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network</a></h4>
<hr />
<h3>Introduction to the Project</h3>
<p>This project seeks to investigate the mediation of domestic and care work through digital platforms in India. These forms of labour fall within the informal economy, which employs the largest share of non-agricultural workers in the global South [1]. Workers and economic units in the informal economy differ widely in terms of all metrics, including income levels, size and type of enterprise, and status of worker. According to the International Labour Organisation’s Resolution on decent work and the informal economy, it refers to “all economic activities by workers and economic units that are - in law of practice - not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements” [2]. What this implies in practice for workers in the informal economy is greater vulnerability to poor work conditions, poverty, and violation of labour rights [3].</p>
<p>Women, particularly those with intersectional marginalities, including that of caste and class, are overrepresented in the informal economy globally and in India. Domestic work in particular has been stratified along the lines of caste and gender historically. Further, class has become more salient in producing stratifications in labour relations following urbanisation and gentrification. These intersections have shaped employment relations in the sector in different ways, which range from feudal to contractual models. Digital platforms are increasingly becoming intermediaries in this space, mediating between so called ‘semi-skilled’ or ‘low-skilled’ workers from lower classes, and millions of middle and upper class employers in tier I cities. This is expected to shift the stratification of workers and employment relations in key ways.</p>
<p>Through a feminist approach to digital labour, our project aims to examine platforms offering domestic or reproductive care work. This will be situated within larger feminist critiques around the devaluation and invisibilisation of women’s labour within patriarchal-capitalist economic discourse. The project further seeks to unpack technocratic imaginaries of the platform economy by looking at access and meaningful use of technology and qualifying narratives around labour market optimisation, empowerment, and agency. We will include within this
scope two kinds of platforms: marketplaces for workers to post their profiles; and on-demand platforms with algorithmic matching of workers and employers.</p>
<h3>Research Questions</h3>
<p>Our hypothesis is that platforms are reconfiguring labour conditions, which would empower and/or exploit workers in ways qualitatively different than non-standard work off the platform. In order to interrogate this further, we will study wages, conditions of work, social security, skill levels, and worker surveillance off platforms. This will be used to develop contextual knowledge around the conditions of work among (a) domestic workers on and off platforms in particular, and (b) informal sector workers joining the web-based gig economy in general.</p>
<p>The overarching question that the research will address is, <strong>what are the ways in which structural inequalities are challenged or reproduced through the growth of digital platforms in reproductive and care work?</strong></p>
<ul><li>How are relations of social inequality, including along the axes of caste and gender, reworked through digital platforms, especially in a context where domestic and care work remains historically undervalued and dominated by women workers with intersectional marginalities?<br /><br /></li>
<li>How do workers on platforms envision the role of the state, market, and informal networks of kinship in intervening in employment relations?<br /><br /></li>
<li>How is inequality and exploitation in informal labour reconfigured through platforms, with specific reference to work conditions (including hours of work, and physical and mental demands of the workplace), wages, social security, and surveillance?<br /><br /></li>
<li>What strategies of negotiation are being and have been adopted by care workers on and off platforms?<br /><br /></li>
<li>Is collectivisation an aspiration for care workers across different models of employment?<br /><br /></li>
<li>How can negotiation and collectivisation strategies inform the ongoing challenges faced by both care workers and platform workers?</li></ul>
<h3>Endnotes</h3>
<p>[1] International Labour Office, (2018). Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture. Third Edition. International labour Organisation. <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/docu-&#xA;ments/publication/wcms_626831.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/docu-
ments/publication/wcms_626831.pdf</a></p>
<p>[2] International Labour Organisation, (2002). 2002 ILC Resolution and Conclusions on Decent Work and the Informal Economy. <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employment-promotion/informal-economy/lang--en/index.htm&#xA; target=">https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employment-promotion/informal-economy/lang--en/index.htm</a></p>
<p>[3] Ibid.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement</a>
</p>
No publisherAmbika Tandon and Aayush RathiDigital EconomyDigital LabourResearchResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2019-10-10T08:09:34ZBlog EntryResearch Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India, New Delhi, Feb 27-28
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018
<b>It is our privilege to collaborate with LabEx ICCA (Université Paris 13), UNESCO New Delhi, Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), and Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS), to organise a Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India. The symposium gathers researchers and practitioners engaging with the changing landscape of cultural and creative industries in India in the context of the rapid expansion of digital technologies and social media. We invite you to join us for a critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around cultural and creative industries, to identify what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematise the questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity, and labour.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Venue: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/UNESCO+NEW+DELHI/@28.5962104,77.1766346,17z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35:0x95c8f02076400bf2!2sUNESCO+NEW+DELHI!8m2!3d28.5962104!4d77.1788233!3m4!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35:0x95c8f02076400bf2!8m2!3d28.5962104!4d77.1788233?hl=en" target="_blank">Conference Room, UNESCO New Delhi, 1 San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, 110021</a> (<em>Note: Please bring your identity document to enter the UNESCO premises</em>)</h4>
<h4>RSVP: Registration is closed</h4>
<h4>Booklet: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/labex-icca-cis-unesco_symposium-2018_booklet.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Programme: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/research-symposium-on-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-programme-2018/at_download/file">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Poster: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/labex-icca-cis-unesco_symposium-2018_poster.png">Download</a> (PNG)</h4>
<h4>Organisers: <a href="https://icca.univ-paris13.fr/" target="_blank">LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13</a>, <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/newdelhi" target="_blank">UNESCO New Delhi</a>, <a href="http://csh-delhi.com/" target="_blank">Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH)</a>, <a href="http://ceias.ehess.fr/" target="_blank">Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS)</a>, and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India</h4>
<hr />
<img src="digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018/leadImage" alt="Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India, New Delhi, Feb 27-28" width="50%" />
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Concept Note</strong></h3>
<p>Digital technologies involve, accompany and provoke changes in the structuring of industrial sectors. How are they more particularly transforming the creation, production, distribution processes in cultural and creative industries? What are reconfigurations and challenges associated with the rise in power of actors from the industries of communication and information? What are the new stakeholder strategies, economic models and power relationships involved? Does digital have the effect of empowering the smallest actors / self-employed / freelancers or on the contrary does it allow large players to relieve themselves of the promotion, production costs on individual creator?</p>
<p>A growing interest in fields such as digital humanities, new media, digital cultures and the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector is another important development here. The rise of a number of digital initiatives in arts and humanities practice, research and teaching has also brought up significantly the question of new skills or expertise required in these fields. The need for digital literacy and ‘re-skilling’ to adapt to new forms of arts and humanities practice in a digital environment has often come with much criticism, as it is viewed as an effort towards vocationalisation and professionalization of these disciplines, a result of the changing mandates of the university and higher education in general. How do we then productively engage with these questions of skill, expertise and labour that goes into the building of new digital industries, which are often located within and at the periphery of academia and creative practices? Importantly, how can concerns about a perceived conflict of creativity and industry be addressed as these transformations take place rapidly with the advent of the digital is an important point of focus.</p>
<p>A critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around creative industries would offer ways of identifying what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematize for us questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity and labour. The conflation and overlap of both ‘cultural’ and ‘creative industries’ and the location of these terms within a larger discourse around policy, economic development, livelihoods and rights, takes on different dimensions post the digital turn. In the context of initiatives like Digital India, and efforts to consolidate an IPR regime, the implications of policy reforms for creative work, especially that performed within informal/underground economies and in the cultural heritage sector are many. These discussions would inform and draw from the ongoing efforts in fostering of a digital economy in India, and the many ways in which it determines cultural production in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Topics that will be addressed at the symposium include, but are not restricted to:</p>
<p>- Digital turns and transformations in cultural and creative industries</p>
<p>- Media infrastructure, digital platforms, and changing landscape of actors</p>
<p>- Digital transitions in the Indian news industry</p>
<p>- Online/offline lives of creative industries and media consumption</p>
<p>Presented by the Labex ICCA and the Center for Internet and Society (CIS), the symposium will gather Indian, French, and international specialists in the cultural industries, new media and technology, information and communication sciences, and social sciences but also professionals and industrial actors in the cultural and artistic sectors. The event is driven an ambition to promote the creation of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional Franco-Indian research network to initiate, develop and share research on cultural industries in India and more widely in South Asia.</p>
<h4>Organising Committee</h4>
<p>- Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13 / CSH)</p>
<p>- Philippe Bouquillion (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13)</p>
<p>- Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</p>
<p>- Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</p>
<p>- Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Symposium Programme (Draft)</strong></h3>
<h4>First Day – Tuesday, February 27, 2018</h4>
<p>10:00-10:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>10:30-11:00<br />
<strong>Welcoming Address</strong><br />
<em>Snigdha Bisht (UNESCO Cultural Department)</em><br />
<strong>Introductions</strong><br />
<em>Shailendra Sigdel (UNESCO Institute for Statistics), Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</em></p>
<p>11:00-12:30<br />
<strong>Session 1: Digital Opportunities and Challenges in the Cultural Industries</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Tanishka Kachru (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad), Akshaya Kumar (IIT Indore), and Vivan Sharan (KOAN Advisory)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH)</em></p>
<p>12:30-13:30<br />
<strong>Lunch</strong></p>
<p>13:30-15:00<br />
<strong>Session 2: Digital Transitions in the News Landscape</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Zeenab Aneez (Freelance Journalist), Ravichandran Bathran (Dalit Camera), and Franck Rebillard (University of Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and Labex ICCA)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</em></p>
<p>15:00-15:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>15:30-17:00<br />
<strong>Session 3: Technology, Creativity, and (Re)Skilling</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Padmini Ray Murray (Srishti School of Art Design and Technology), Sneha Raghavan (Asia Art Archive), and Xenia Zeiler (University of Helsinki)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<h4>Second Day – Wednesday, February 28, 2018</h4>
<p>10:00-10:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>10:30-12:30<br />
<strong>Session 4: Digital Platforms and Media Distribution</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Narendra Ganesh (KPMG), Mae Thomas (Maed in India), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), and Nikhil Pahwa (Medianama)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<p>12:30-13:30<br />
<strong>Lunch</strong></p>
<p>13:30-15:00<br />
<strong>Session 5: Copyright, Creative Content, and Rights of Performers</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Nandita Saikia (Lawyer), Anubha Sinha (The Centre for Internet and Society), and Manojna Yeluri (Artistik License)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia)</em></p>
<p>15:00-15:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>15:30-17:00<br />
<strong>Session 6: Technologies of Aesthetic Imagi/nation</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Farrah Miranda (Artists), Rashmi Munikempanna (Artist), Swati Janu (Architect), and Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)</em></p>
<p>17:00-18:00<br />
<strong>Concluding Remarks</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society), Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Location of Venue</strong></h3>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d3503.1188754990826!2d77.17663461441647!3d28.596210382432034!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35%3A0x95c8f02076400bf2!2sUNESCO+NEW+DELHI!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sin!4v1518344368273" frameborder="0" height="450" width="600"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroDigital NewsRAW EventsDigital EconomyDigital KnowledgeDigital MediaCreative IndustriesResearchers at Work2018-02-26T11:04:24ZEvent