Digital property, digital imperialism and digital resilience: What little steps can Indonesia do?
Written by Angga Priancha
Angga Priancha is a Researcher at Lembaga Kajian Hukum dan Teknologi Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia (Center of Law and Technology Studies Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia.) He holds Master’s in Intellectual Property Law from The University of Edinburgh (UK).
The launch of the Playstation 5 digital edition gives us signs of the new meaning of digital property. Long ago game consoles were only a machine that runs video games. The game itself was usually bought in the form of a disk or CD and treated as a standalone product from the console. With this separate possession, a person that owns a game console can sell their game and console individually. However, digital console, as well as digital content provider, has brought us a new way of owning property.
Buying digital content does not give us total possession of what we bought, but only give us access to use. Unlike the game console and game CD scenario, owning digital content does not give us full control over the things we bought independently. Most of the digital content is now based on subscription or usually connected to our personal account. Therefore, we cannot sell it as an independent property without selling our personal account.
The situation where the property is connected to an account has also raised an issue over the possession of digital property. Owning an account means that we only possess access to an account, not the object as a whole. In possessing digital property, we are dependent on the electronic system provider, Internet provider and even power provider. Many of these electronic service system service providers are foreign companies that do not have a physical office in Indonesia. This means that legal protection and law enforcement would be a challenge.
Edmon Makarim (2021) views this situation, where we could not hold full control of our capital and property, as a new kind of imperialism, "Digital Imperialism." Digital imperialism then would correlate with the issue of our digital resilience, which raises these questions: “Would it be dangerous for Indonesia’s digital resilience if these digital infrastructure suddenly stop working?” “What little steps can we do to take control of our digital resource?" This article will dive into the correlation among digital property, digital imperialism and digital resilience, as well as proposing some steps that the Indonesian government can do about it.
Digital property?
Abdul Salam (2018) argues that digital property is electronic information that is dependent on the accountability of the electronic system. For illustration, it is plausible that we cannot gain access to a piece of digital information (music, films, games, text, etc.) without a proper software or electronic system. Also, we could not access a digital property without a certain account.
Things become interesting if we look at Salam’s construction of digital property ownership from the perspective of digital imperialism. He argues that anyone that has the right of access or control to an electronic information is deemed as its owner. Looking at the current situation, it is true that most digital properties are sold through a specific account and those accounts will have access to digital property. For example, buying a game from Google Play Store would give our account access to play the game. However, do we really have full control over the game we bought?
Critically speaking, we don't. To have access to the game, we are dependent on various infrastructure. First, we need electricity to power our electronic devices; second, we need Internet connection to access the content; third, we need Google as an electronic service provider to give us access to our digital property, "a digital copy of the game." The absence of one of these elements would make us unable to control the digital property that we have bought. This means that even though we already bought a digital property, we still don’t have full control over it; whether to access it or sell it.
For a digital property in the form of a "game," this might not look that serious. However, what if the digital property is in the form of a strategic database of a country? Or personal data of a strategic figure? Or a strategic software for state defence? This situation where we cannot control our own resources is seen as a new way of imperialism.
Digital imperialism?
Roy (2018) as cited by Edmon Makarim (2021) argues that imperialism is related to the monopoly of capital. Capital in this sense are the digital property and digital infrastructure. Edmon noted that lots of digital infrastructure, such as source code, software, hardware and even data, are being controlled by certain players globally. He implied that there is a hegemony in the global information and communication technology (ICT) sector inside an imperium.
Edmon supports Roy‘s claims through data from Digital Economy Report 2019 from the United Nations Conference (UNCTAD, 2019) which shows that digital technology companies are geographically concentrated in the US and China. This would mean that if we own or store electronic information inside a foreign digital infrastructure, they will indirectly have control of our digital property. Hence, if we reflect on Salam's theory of digital property “control,” our digital is co-owned. This would lead to our digital resources being dependent on services provided by these foreign ICT companies and would raise an issue over digital resilience.
Digital Resilience?
The society today is now reliant on digital technology to do their everyday function in life. The Covid-19 pandemic also rapidly increases our reliance on ICT technology. A lot of our data and information, which is digital property, is stored within these electronic systems. The question is now: "Would it be dangerous for Indonesia’s digital resilience if these foreign digital infrastructure suddenly stop working?”
This raised the issue of Indonesia’s digital resilience. Brian Amy Prastyo, a Telematics Law lecturer at Universitas Indonesia, often describes “digital resilience” as a concept of how an entity would survive a digital crisis caused by digital infrastructure malfunction or attacks. It could be in the form of a cyber-attack or even a natural disaster that destroys strategic digital infrastructure, hence making the whole interconnected ICT system unable to operate.
In the context of digital imperialism, what if, due to war or certain political reasons, these foreign ICT giants stop their services to Indonesia? We could see the example of this in the termination of Google’s support for Huawei devices, where it led to massive economic losses for Huawei. This makes us wonders about what would happen if similar cases happen to Indonesia. What are steps should Indonesia take to gain control of its digital property and protect its digital resilience?
What little steps Indonesia can do?
In the long run, Indonesia should consider building its own Internet backbone like what China has done. Indonesia should also consider starting to develop its own software, hardware and data centre so that all of its digital infrastructure - from the digital property to the access - are under its control.
In the short run, Indonesia could start enhancing its grip on citizens’ privacy and data protection by passing the Bill of Privacy and Data Protection (Rancangan Undang-undang Perlindungan Data Pribadi/RUU PDP) into law. The enactment of RUU PDP would ensure protection of people’s personal data.
Indonesia could also start accelerating the enactment of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Keamanan dan Ketahanan Siber/RUU KamTanSiber) as a concrete action in protecting national cyber resilience and security.
Disclaimer: The view expressed on opinion article doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of The Finery Report. The opinion belongs to the author of the article.