Is Digital Strategy a Worthwhile Pursuit in the Caribbean?
In 2019 I was minding my business - like everybody else I suppose - when Netflix jumped out itself and put Trinidad and Tobago on blast in a documentary called The Great Hack. In one of its segments, filmmakers Noujaim and Amer identify facets of corruption in our politics inveigled by the now defunct behavioural change agency, Cambridge Analytica.
I watched that documentary and was dumbstruck. The level of data targeting suggested in the film showcased our country and its people in an embarrassing light. If the methods by which big data was used against the unknowing population of the country are true, it would mean that we have always been dangerously exposed and showed our fragile necks and soft bellies for easy slaughter. “It was carnage”, Alexander Nix, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, gloated. Culturally, we were eviscerated based on the very real racial tensions that exist here as well as the disgusting reductivist generalisation of the way we vote our governments into power. Though there is a lot ot be said about our elections over the years, the fact that our country was the case study leveraged to sway other elections in Africa, Asia, USA, and Europe shows not only the significant disregard for a people on the part of some political groups in the digital age (because let us not forget that Cambridge Analytica was a gun for hire and in fact were commissioned to design a campaign to undermine the voting public based on cultural bias by a someone unknown), but also the glaring levels of ignorance concerning the reach of protection due to the Trinbago people about their rights in digital spaces.
I remember the “Do So” campaign well. I remember the early call for elections too. Flashback to 2010 and I remember when Villafana (now infamous) made the papers when he first introduced us to the “do so” gesture - an open and highly publicised rejection of the PNM along with its party leader then, the late Patrick Manning. And seeing the old man’s face flash across the screen in that documentary segment again, seeing the bold symbol flash across the screen in the context in which it, he, we were unfavourably presented made my skin crawl.
If the vision of our portrayal or the aftereffects of that election doesn’t do you in (knowing what we know now), then you might shiver with fear or steel with concern when you realise the extent of this kind of threat: When Senor Nix boasted of having almost 5000 data points on American voters, one Professor David Carroll grew concerned and filed a legal complaint under the British legal system (Cambridge Analytica was registered in the UK) and when he failed to retrieve such, he found himself squaring off with what would eventually turn into the Facebook - Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fiasco involved the illicit culling of personal data right under the noses of the Facebook platform technocrats and some innocent people of the world’s governments. And though Professor David Carroll’s actions helped to overturn the work of the data science company, he was unable to obtain his data at the time of filing. But, when the dust settled, BBC Channel 4 was able to source and return to Carroll the dossier of data stolen from him. For a glimpse of what can be gleaned from the psychographics determined through the amount of personal data Cambridge Analytica stole, watch the BBC Channel 4 News clip with Professor David Carroll.
There are very few authorities reporting on the effect of the digital industry on Caribbean culture. Fortunately, in Trinidad and Tobago, we have the steadfast tech journalist Mark Lyndseray. In his Newsday column, BitDepth, he reviews the case for Caribbean-wide data protection regulations in article #1291 and further outlines a number of issues therein that should be of great concern to the regional public. This stalwart of the industry has been writing this column since 1995, and has been cautioning us of the many ways in which we are not protecting ourselves. While there is so much to celebrate about the Caribbean’s adoption of digital - through innovation, resourcefulness, and unbounded creativity - it makes it ever more important to safeguard our digital activity.
The Trinidad and Tobago Data Protection Act, was last updated on December 31st, 2016 and can be found on the Ministry of Legal Affairs website. Parts III and IV detail the extent to which the data rights of the Trinbago public begin and end. Though we may not allow something like the Cambridge Analytica scandal to happen again without smelling the rat, who is to say that some other infringement of our rights isn’t already being exploited by some unassuming institution? Better to take front and read the act before front take you. This document is important to maintain the integrity of any digital strategy crafted by any such person of the skill and capability - whether good or bad.
Hopefully, we won’t be caught off guard again. And at the very least, we have someone like Mark Lyndseray standing watch.
