Posts tagged “Industry 4.0”

Digi Yatra a fancy term for journeys undertaken at airports will now deploy facial recognition technology at checkpoints such as Entry check points, Entry in to security check and aircraft boarding. The service will further facilitate self bag-drop and check-in using facial technology to identify pax and data recall. The goal of such a service is to aid hassle-free paperless travel to the passengers and avoid the trouble of multiple checkpoints. This will considerably impact the long queues and minimum human intervention such as the deployment of security guards at the entry gates of airports. As the national portal of India points out, Digi Yatra is built on four key pillars: Connected passengers, Connected airports, Connected flying and Connected systems. The portal points out the advantages of such a service stating that passengers can plan their travel by comparing the price estimates and estimate future trends, link their aadhar to airlines and other ecosystem players at the time of booking to ensure faster airport entry, walk through security scanners swiftly owing to advanced biometric technology, receive information related to facilities, protocols, airline timings, and queue lengths at the airports, engage in customised digital offerings at experience zones, real time notifications about congestion and delays, navigating through airport using digital guidance systems, interactive kiosks, and get a prompt when the language reaches the baggage belt.

All these benefits and the service has already started seeing the light of the day in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Vijayawada and Pune. The Digi Central platform was supposed to start by end of February 2019. The project is a result of partnership between Lufthansa, Miami International Airport, the US Customs and Border Protection, and aviation IT provider SITA (Maneesh Jaikrishna, Vice-President-Indian Subcontinent, Eastern and Southern Africa), enabling confirmation of passengers’ identities using a photograph taken at the boarding gate. As reported in BusinessLine, “SITA’s Smart Path technology integrates with government systems and databases to authenticate passengers during airport check-ins and border checks”.

Another new innovation in the field of facial recognition is the new ‘automated facial recognition system’ (AFRS) system to match images and photos of criminals. The system has been proposed installation of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to identify criminals, missing children, and persons and unidentified bodies. The system shall also be used by the police department in matching suspects with criminals to their hotlist. According to this Times of India report, “AFRS is intended to zero in on images or videos related to a crime or mob violence and compare select pictures with an existing image database”. The report further elaborates that “AFRS solution will be web-based application hosted at the NCRB data centre in Delhi, with connectivity to police stations through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS)”. The system offers logical algorithms and user-friendly, simple graphical user interface making the image matching easier. The CCTV technology can be utilized to capture faces and CCTNS can alert the 2 police if a doubtful face/blacklist is identified. The system has concerned many cyber experts especially considering its repercussions on privacy of citizens as it can also “match a suspect or criminal’s photograph with a database created images available with passport”. Although the system is yet to be implemented after the bidding process, the system will be able to identify individual faces of by extracting contours, features, and other prominent points. Also, it would be able to match facial images with change in facial expression, direction, angle, lighting, age, hairstyle, beard, glasses, scars, marks and tattoos.

Ramifications of Facial Technology

The rise of techniques such as facial recognition, behaviour analysis, and video surveillance are some of the ways in which state will attempt to keep an eye on its citizens. Today, the big data companies in close alliance with state are making decisions on behalf of citizenry — which involves analysing social media content like hate speech, using tools such as facial recognition for non-criminal purposes as well. The technology can further pave way for the police to suspicious of individuals without any concrete evidence. Usha Ramathan, a legal expert and human rights advocate has pointed out that facial recognition, iris scan and fingerprint recognition are becoming markers of identity. This means that our bodies will increasingly become a marker of our identities, thus having a determinative ability.

The vulnerabilities in the context of such technology become risky especially when widespread use of facial technology by law enforcement officials such as Punjab Artificial Intelligence System and private companies like Paytm use such methods without any legislation to regulate its implementation.

Looking at these flipsides in the light of India’s casteist society, it would easier for police authorities to single out individuals based on their caste and profile them as criminals.

While on the one hand, it is imperative to update ourselves with the advancements in technology, however, it will be completely anti-citizen policy to execute such measures without a relevant regulatory framework. It is important to mention here that there are countries which have adopted this technology to keep an eye on the oppressed groups. For instance, in China facial technology is being deployed to keep a tab on the oppressed Muslim Uighur population. In a context of highly differentiated society on account of religion, caste, culture, it becomes even more necessary for tech companies to emphasize for a regulatory framework. As India moves closer to have a biometric base for unique identification of its citizens, it is paramount to have a legal framework that preserves right to privacy which is nothing put preserving right to life under article 21 of the Indian constitution.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

Patriarchy as a ubiquitous contextual reality has impacted how technology interacts with different genders. Gender and sex as differentiated by feminists as social constructivism and biological determinism respectively– gender is comprehended is how one is raised and conditioned. Women as agents of domestic realm and men as agents of public realm is how we can understand normative framework of gender. The dichotomy between sexes is created in our internalisations of how women and men are supposed to be in different settings. This understanding percolates in the manner men and women interact with and access technology. The advancement of science and technology resulted in several revolutions especially changing the ways in which we interact with each other. However, the larger sociological process that influences our daily behaviours and accessibility of different resources are manifestations of patriarchy. It is patriarchy in India when mobile phones are considered provocative instruments for rape incidents and sexual harassment. It is true that technology doesn’t discriminate between genders, however, design of technology is based on heteronormative matrix. The genders are perceived in their social contexts which are determined by our social conditioning. Based on these tenets, gender gap in the digital space is equally universal and must be addressed in order to create a more inclusive, gender equal space.

Empirical Evidence

Various research studies have suggested that digital divide has emerged along the lines of previously existing social divides. The divide between genders is a reproduction of social inequalities existing in our societies and political settings. The gaps further determine how technology provide opportunities to access information, a necessary tool for participating in a democratic context. Research has indicated that women lag behind men in the ownership of technology and the utilization of technological expertise. Anthony Giddens, a sociologist, argues that differences in access to any kind of resources is dependent on structures of the society. The structuration theory establishes a connection between individual’s desires, social structures influencing their behaviours and the way they think about objects as technology. There are two kinds of access determining the gender digital divide. Firstly, cognitive access comprising of individual resources like attitudes, anxiety and skills for accessing technology. Secondly, social access refers to cultural norms and social resources embodied in different social groups. In case of gender divide, both the kinds cognitive and social norms have impeded the access to technology. Research evidences in USA and European countries have revealed that boys indicated more positive attitude about computer technology than girls. This research conducted by Gita Wilder, Diane Mackie and J. Cooper have contended that these differences in attitudes towards computers and internet becomes quite ostensible in the fifth grade and even furthers through the middle school and high school years. Similarly, other empirical evidences by Cooper and Weaver have suggested that women would often avoid taking up course relying on technology in their university education. Women in such cases didn’t lack technical skills as on the contrary same researchers have revealed that four out of five women had completed courses in calculus. Cooper in his research borrows from Reinen and Plomp (1997), ‘concern about gender equity is right.. ‘concern about gender equity is right. . . Females know less about information technology, enjoy using the computer less than male students and perceive more problems with. . . activities carried out with computers in schools’ (Cooper, 322).

The structuration theory points out the role of institutions and structures in providing access to technology. The social practice of public access to computers and the internet has elements of structure: institutions which have library system, community centres, or others decide to put in public access computers. Giddens here draws a correlation between individual’s agency (possibility of individual action) and structures of social setting arguing that structure is both enabling and restraining. This can be further understood in consonance with social construction theory envisaging that technology is socially shaped according to different social contexts, the way society is structured informs the technology shapes, designs and meanings. Social construction theory argues that potential media ultimately produces messages that are suitable for a given society. It is true that in this manner technology opens up new possibilities for genders as how different gender roles might be performed in new areas. And in the social setting, gender shapes the construction and meanings of technology. This becomes visible in the way gender gap closes in the 1990s when it comes to possession of ICTs. The empirical evidence post 1990s has unveiled that gender gap in skills and usage remains, however, these gaps are far more prevalent among adults. Similarly, Pew National Surveys of computer/internet point out that visible gender gap in overall computer or internet use in the late 1990s disappeared by the 2000s. However, at institutional level such as libraries, public centres such gaps continue to be determined by gender inequalities and accessibility.

Gender gap in the times of Internet and AI

This report at Livemint argues that patriarchy remains the underlying phenomenon for unequal access to technology among genders. Quoting a UNESCO report, Sahil Kini has pointed out that 70 percent of internet users are men. According to the world data of 3.58 billion internet users, “2 billion (56%) are men and 1.57 billion (44%) are women. Of that shortfall of 430 million users, 42% comes from India”.

In terms of owning a mobile phone, an Indian Express report reveals that there exist a stark contrast between genders. According to the study conducted by LIRNEAsia, an information and communications technology (ICT) policy think tank based in Colombo, “only 43 per cent of women in India own mobile phones compared to almost 80 per cent of Indian males — mostly because of a lack of awareness”. The gender gap in rural areas in 54 percent whereas in urban areas it is 34 percent.

In the field of artificial intelligence, Global Gender Gap report 2018 produced by World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with LinkedIn has pointed out that only 22 percent are women are represented in the workforce. Women are generally employed in the positions of data analysts, researchers, information managers and teachers. Women in AI are only more represented in lower paying industries like non-profits, education and healthcare. As reported in CNBC, “The analysis found that the AI gender gap is three times larger than other industry talent pools”.

Another report at Quartz, has argued that women students in artificial intelligence are severely underrepresented. The report argues, “Less than 20% of faculty at top universities are women, according to the AI Index data, which looked at seven top universities in the United States and Europe”. Further, the percentage of women seeking jobs in AI in USA is 29% as compared to 70% men.

The research in AI already remains male-centric. In 2017, the researchers at the universities of Virginia and Washington showed that the image collections and algorithms deployed in teaching AI involve examples that portray the same societal conditioning of genders. For instance, women are related with activities in domestic realm like washing, cleaning etc. Another depressing scenario that has been reported is in the field of machine learning where women are significantly lesser than men. The pie chart below speaks volumes on this.

Source: Percent of men and women who contributed work to three leading machine learning conferences in 2017. Source: Element AI

Source:https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/women-already-losing-war-robots-taking-jobs-230105183.html

Similarly, the automation of certain jobs has disproportionately affected women impacting their traditional jobs. At the same time, women remain underrepresented in the fields of Science and Technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM). The report’s author’s have argued that, “the possible emergence of new gender gaps in advanced technologies, such as the risks associated with emerging gender gaps in Artificial Intelligence-related skills”. It is imperative to understand that gender parity is essential in emerging nations for both the booming of economy and polity.

“Saadia Zahidi, head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society and member of the managing board at World Economic Forum”, in this report said industries must ‘proactively hardwire gender parity in the future through effective training, reskilling, and upskilling interventions and tangible job transition pathways’.

The gender inequality in technological and digital space is largely a manifestation of the happenings in social worlds. The answer to all these gaps and persistent chasms is to first address the source of why girls at a young age are ‘supposedly’ disinterested in technology. The differentiation of this world into pinks for girls and blues for boys, beauty for girls and technical for boys has continued to set a benchmark for various skill-sets and resources. The solution to these dipping percentages lies in addressing the discrimination that exists at the level of upbringing. The social settings and frameworks need to be more engendered so that boundaries between pinks and blues are not stringent and porous to cross-over.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

Jamie Susskind’s book, ‘Future Politics’ underlines multifarious ways technology is bound to impact the political realm. By building a relationship between technology, state and the private sector, Susskind, has argued that technology in many ways will have to be organised in consonance with evolving ideas in politics. The tentative hypothesis proposed here, “how we gather, store, analyse, and communicate our information– in essence how we organise it– it is closely related to how we organise our politics”. Many a times, it has been assumed that technology has no relationship with the politics of the nation-state. The book, ‘Future Politics’ brings various concepts of political science and comprehend how each one of them is intertwined with technology. These concepts of politics are power, liberty, justice, and democracy. The reason behind choosing these concepts is our use of them in daily life while thinking and speaking about politics. Furthermore, these concepts have an irreducible core and thus, cannot be taken away without the concept ceasing to mean what it means. An important fact about concepts is that concepts on their own have no right or wrong definition, however, its definition must be accepted by significant number of its users. As the technological age advances, concepts will keep evolving depending on the usage of the linguistic community, therefore, there are no eternal concepts and no eternal meanings. Here, Susskind asks a crucial question that concepts valid during a particular historical epoch might not be relevant in the contemporary times. However, looking at this question from a political philosophy perspective, I argue that it would be a fallacy to not apply philosophical questions in times of technological change. An idea of ‘justice’ and ‘democracy’ is essential to deconstruct what is happening, and also, without understanding social realities it is intricate to know what kind of ethical framework will be applied in a particular context. I want to point out here in the beginning the author is skeptical about applying universal framework or using a theoretical paradigm in entirety. Therefore, the core argument here is to apply theory rooted in reality and facts of life to be able to give guidance as to how we live together. Susskind is highly critical of using theoretical concepts in an abstract sense and thus, advocates to use Alexis de Tocqueville’s tech-enabled democracy and applying Marx’s theories for ownership and control of AI systems. 

The book is divided into four conceptual frameworks of politics- power, liberty, justice and democracy and how these ideas are connected with various strands of technology. Power, liberty, justice and democracy are not solely political but ideas constantly regulated by the state and private authorities (tech firms here). Keeping these concepts at centre, Susskind weaves arguments by reconciling different debates around these concepts by bringing forth various philosophical arguments. The book exceptionally brings out various philosophical arguments in understanding nuance of codes, algorithms, AI and blockchain. 

Power: Power could be perceived in three ways: force, scrutiny and perception control. The argument here is that power in technological age will be more concentrated in the hands of the state and large tech companies. Susskind defines power as the ability, facility or capacity of a person to do something. The author is paying more attention to the idea of ‘power over’ than ‘power to’. However, this limited conception of power is inclined to negate power in relation the citizenry. Susskind’s concern is limited to power relations between people which boils down to ignoring the important questions of privacy and state surveillance. The relationship between code and power is such that our interaction with the code makes one to necessarily submit to the dictates of their code. Code, here, refers to set of instructions given to computer in its own language for the workings of various software. In that manner, Susskind points out that code can also be used to manipulate and influence people in ways that don’t resemble the workings of the law. This is where ‘scrutiny’ comes to play a huge role– where technology alters our perception about the world. The author summarises their viewpoint as ‘code is law and code is power’. Code’s empire rules us in the sense that it leaves no distinction between human and machine, online and offline, virtual and physical. In this context, whether we interact with digital technologies or whether we are aware of them, it will matter less and less. 

In the coming times, code will be much more dynamic, sensitive and adaptable referee of our conduct– potent and capable of changing rules as well as enforcing them. The ‘force’ element of power also functions in three ways digitization of force – a transition from written law to digital law, privatization of force that is erosion of state control over the use of technology and automation of force that is the emergence of autonomous digital systems that can exert force against humans without immediate human oversight and control. Susskind argues that these three transitions will have a political significance. The ‘codification’ of law will take place when law will be computed by AI systems applying in general standards to specific situations. This has been called as ‘digital law’ which will further codify values. The values brings a scenario where technology will be capable of working on its own whims and fancies. For instance, a self driven car can be reprogrammed to drive off to the nearest cliff. The ‘power’ of technological realm is foucauldian because no matter whether we choose it or not we are subjected to it in our day to day life. The autonomy of digital systems and their self sustenance without any human intervention would have be maintained independently without any risks of being tampered by a third party. As we know this is bound to have risks as AI and other technologies operating without any human intervention will not be sensitive human needs and social cleavages. In this sense, technology in itself has a potential to influence and manipulate. The issue of scrutiny can be problematic as it is always a grey area when it comes to efficient surveillance systems and sketchy judgement of police and government officials. Being scrutinized will become a norm in future and those who monopolize the means of scrutiny are technologies capable of gathering and processing information and thus, gaining an increase in their power on rest of us. 

Scrutiny also operationalize in a disciplinary manner, such that mere fact that we are being watched makes us alter our behaviors and the constant ‘big brother is watching you’ puts us in different hierarchies. Susskind argues, “in the digital life-world, individuals will be even more scrutable than before. Authentication will not be a matter of external designations like names or even numbers, but will be taken directly from our living bodies, each one uniquely identifiable by the bio-metric details of face, fingerprints, retinas, irises or gait”. This is identical to criticisms against Aadhar and its bio-metric technology. In other words, an individual is reduced to a number and there is no escaping. 

Liberty: There are broadly two views on technology – an optimist and a pessimist. The former advocates that technology will free us from the shackles of daily life and make our life easy. The latter advocates for that technology will become another way for the strong to subjugate the freedoms of the weak. However, the author has argued for a balance of both optimism and pessimism and above all future would require ‘vigilance’ if one has to ensure according to John F Kennedy’s dictum, ‘survival and success of liberty’. 

In future, the predictive analysis can pose a danger to citizens’ freedom by predicting their future behaviour. While the accuracy of such predictive analysis is one thing, predictive policing systems frequently tell police to put resources in an area where the outcome is still unpredictable. The algorithms which are deployed to predict crime, are prone to targeting people based on their future conduct or certain ideas perpetuated in society – racism, and gender bias. The predictive policing should focus on reasoning behind the commitment of crimes and not incarcerating people.

Another technological advancement has been encryption. There are two ways encryption bothers the author. Firstly, in case of terrorist attack it will be difficult for state agencies to detect terrorist plotting. Secondly, the author is skeptical of encryption becoming a ubiquitously acceptable technology as many private businesses would want an easy access to the platforms used by citizens. 

Thus, the author holistically argues for a system of restraints than a system of precise and perfect law for what is already a society of flawed, damaged human beings. 

Democracy : In the realm of digital technology, we are surrounded by multiple ideas of democracy. These include deliberative democracy, direct democracy, wiki democracy, data democracy and AI democracy. The idea of democracy from classical, liberal to republican is marred with how internet works in the present context. Susskind argues, “Political elites have begun to exploit the remarkable potential of big data in profiling citizens, modelling their political behaviour, predicting their intentions and targeting advertisements and organisational accordingly”. This has become ostensible in recent cases of political campaigning of Donald Trump in 2016 and deployment of Cambridge Analytica. This new approach to data-based campaigning has been called the ‘engineering of consent’ and also, as ‘weaponized AI propaganda machine’. This constant changing relationship between internet, government and citizens and a co-relationship between citizens, needs a regulatory framework. The author has succinctly pointed out we need to comprehend challenges and opportunities of democracy in the digital world. This would a continuous evolution of democratic notions and not any one framework can be utilized to comprehend the complexities of AI democracy or data democracy. The digital life-world will prompt us to decide that is equally deliberative and doesn’t stifle people’s liberties. 

Justice: My first impression while reading the key concepts was that author has skipped an important concept of- equality. However, in this section, Susskind argues that justice and equality are not the same. Further, many a times, justice doesn’t translate into material equality and neither into treating everyone the same. The concept of justice, nonetheless, is interlinked with the concept of equality of opportunity and justice as desert. The concept of justice has a role in digital world in distributing algorithms to both the market and the state. These algorithms will again play a part in deciding distribution of social goods and deciding access to resources. Algorithms will apply to our shopping patterns routinely display advertisements for payday loans to less well-off groups. These are some essential questions revolving around distributive justice. Potential injustice is latent in several interstices of internet space- bad data, unjust rules, and even in neutral rules. In other words, those who write algorithms will wield unjust economic power and owners of digital technologies will be the lords of economic advantages. In that context, it is imperative to understand what are the economic structures of a society and how that will impact the distribution of social goods. The proposed idea is that of ‘Digital Con-federalism’ that ensures preservation of liberty so that people can move between systems according to their choice of code. The availability of liberties be it news gathering or communication should be such that it is possible to move between systems without adverse consequences. 

The central idea of the book is that ‘digital is political’. The motive of many tech companies nowadays is to disrupt our economic and political lives in their quest for profits. The driving argument is that advances in genetic engineering, medicine, robotics, nanotechnology and AI will shape our politics such that concepts of theory would have to be contextualized. The future of politics must be comprehend in this kind of theoretical reality where justice, democracy, liberty and power are valued and put in harmony with digital world. 

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

Digital Democracy in political sense stands for an interconnected realm aided through internet and communication technologies. The term is synonymously used for ‘electronic democracy’, ‘tele democracy’, and ‘cyber democracy’. According to Barry N. Hague and Brian Loader, digital democracy in the contemporary context refers to wide range of technological applications like ‘people’s parliaments,’, citizens’ juries, email access to electronic discussion groups and public information kiosks. The emergence of digital democracy is often seen as a platform where society and technology interacts causing an effect in the politics of the state. This interaction originates from its contextual social realities, political culture, legal frameworks and is often constrained through power relations. The expansion of digital democracy in globalized world has enhanced political democracy impacting the participation of citizens in a democratic set up. Historically, the portrayal of digital democracy draws from the notions of direct communication between the politicians and the citizens. Robert Dahl’s, ‘Who Governs?’, argues that public meetings by civic groups were a wellspring for popular sovereignty. Research studies by Castells, Kerbel & Bloom and many others have revealed that online communication is no different from face-to-face interaction between different leaders and citizens. The blogs, podcasts and other online mediums are not only discursive spaces for establishing a link between the political talk and online participation but also facilitating the circulation of news and opinions among the common citizenry.

In terms of political campaigning and using digital democracy for creating political and electoral impacts, Barack Obama is well-known as “the first digital president”. His 2008 election campaign was an endeavor to engage citizens and the government. However, the campaign was later criticized as slicing voters into micro-targetable commodities. As reported here by The Guardian,“it was about turning voters and the magic of the ballot box into giant matrices, thousands of rows and columns of data running across a screen. And politics doesn’t need to listen to what people are trying to say if technology can discover what it needs to win their vote while they slump in front of TV.”

Theoretically, the notion of digital democracy if understood from liberal-individualist perspective or what can be called ‘right-wing’ leaning is that within digitized democracy individuals should be able to have their particular interests realised in liberal political systems. According to Lincoln Dahlberg, “Digital media are understood here as enabling individuals to gain the information they need to examine competing political positions and problems, and as providing them with the means for the registration, and subsequent aggregation”. According the right-wing understanding, digital democracy is a forum to fulfill one’s individual and economic aspirations without hindrance in a marketplace. Democracy here is an aggregation and expression of individuals wills that aims to protect the rights of individuals ensuring maximization of information flows and registration of choices. In that manner, digital media is seen as operating reasonable independent of centralized controls. Holistically, the aim of liberal individualist perspective is to expand the direct individual representative communication and eventually looking forward to bypass the state, corporate, political party, and lobby group interference in this individual-representative relationship.

Within the left-wing leaning or what can also be called as marxist positioning of digital democracy focuses on the cooperative ownership of digital commons. The left-wing vision of digital democracy was ostensible in Jeremy Corbyn’s vision of democratising the internet. In his manifesto he underlined that the labour party aims to democratise the internet such that no one is left behind. He advocated for a high speed broadband across the country, digital bill of rights to protect personal privacy thereby, enhancing online rights of individuals, platform cooperatives– fostering the cooperative ownership of digital platforms for distributing labour and selling services. When it comes to cooperative ownership it also seems that Corbyn’s vision was to nationalise the services like Airbnb, Deliveroo, and Uber. He also envisioned a publically funded open source software where everyone can share a code and learn from each other.

While the right emphasises too much on the individual, the left has its own downsides of stressing too much on the community aspect. The criticisms furnished against Corbyn’s vision were that secure and portable online identity which could be used for services like health, education and housing will have privacy concerns. The online meetings on political matters as suggested in his manifesto is a replica of Twitter.

We might bifurcate the political inclinations as left, right and centre, however, digital revolution has both the perspectives closely attached to it. On the flipside, the secrecy and opaqueness of digital network have always been a questionable matter. The role of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in such a reality becomes unaccountable to billions of people as the founder of such organisations are the rule setters. With regards to the matters of governance and policy making, the state must function as an agency to set the framework for digital democracy. Even in terms of technological revolutions, and lessening of gaps one must not forget that power relations remain as it is. Therefore, what could be bad or a gap that requires filling is that democracy has to ensure that social relations are in consonance with digital parlance.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

The online voting or e-voting signifies a voting method aided by the internet technology. The central idea behind using a voting method supported by internet and communication technologies is firstly to expand representative democracy and secondly, upgrading voting methods according to technological advancements and innovations. In any kind of democratic system, the voting method aims to enhance political participation of its citizens, speed up the counting of votes casted, is accessible to all the sections of population (disabled friendly, etc) thereby, aiming towards a transparent and accountable governance. The notion of liquid democracy is closely linked with the system of online voting as it seeks to combine representative democracy and direct democracy. The democracy may vary from direct, representative to liquid, however, online method of voting ensures that the divide between the leaders and citizens is eliminated.

Evolution of Online Voting

According to Scott Fletcher, the predecessors of online voting can be identified in the use of voting machines dating back to the 19th century USA and England. The use of TV sets via telesets paved the way for what was then named as tele-democracy in the 1980s which then gradually transitioned to internet voting with the advent of world wide web in the 1990s. This rapid development of e technology and model of direct democracy in USA and Switzerland resulted into voting machines and postal voting coming out as designs for developing online voting. However, online voting was used in the national elections of Estonia in 2005.

The small baltic state- Estonia began with internet voting in the local elections of 2005 where only 1.9% voted online. In the recent times, this percentage has increased to more than 30% in the parliamentary elections. The voters in Estonian context are named as ‘i-voters’ and eligibility criteria is not restricted to particular gender, income, education, and computer skills. In order to vote, the voters have to connect their ID-card during the early voting period using a smart card reader or using their mobile ID. The online voting method in Estonia has ensured that young voters are involved in the electoral process, and also, that Estonians residents in other countries can vote via internet. In this report by BBC, Arne Koitmae, the deputy head of Estonia electoral office said, “In 2015, Estonians living in 116 different countries participated in the elections using internet voting.” Further, it has been revealed in various news reports that the extension of online voting in the public sphere is not merely about increasing the percentage of voters but also suggesting a change in their preferred method of voting. The percentage of voters casting votes in the online elections has been explained in the following chart from 2007 parliamentary elections in Estonia to 2015.

Source: https://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/faq-a4-v02-i-voting-1.pdf

As we can see in the chart above, the voting percentage in the recent parliamentary elections has escalated from 6% in 2007 to 31% in 2015.

Besides, the increase in voting percentage the online security concerns are met by end to end encryption and keeping the voting method updated with new technological developments. The cryptography in the online voting method ensures same voter identity for the certificates in the document. Another aspect is that after the voting, the QR code can be verified with a mobile phone to authenticate the accuracy of vote through different communication channel.

Present system of Online Voting and the way ahead

In the recent decades, the internet voting became prevalent in political election of USA in 2000. The internet voting has also become a trend in other countries such as Canada, Estonia, France and Switzerland. It is true that internet voting is considered an important aspect in restoring individuals’ trust towards institutions and democratic structure, however, internet voting as a method is a complex one. For voters, it is pivotal to have some amount of technical expertise to understand the voting method. In such a context, it is crucial that voters are trained technically and various awareness programs are held so that they can make an informed choice. A mechanism that can also ensure the trustworthiness of the system is making the information publicly available. A pertinent aspect of voting system’s integrity lies in its certification, testing and audit methods.

The other issue considering the future of online voting concerns with the internet security. The risk of system being hacked, targeted by terrorists or rogue nations, plagued by computer viruses or hijacked by political groups. An example in this regard would be Russia’s attempts to hack into election systems of 21 states in USA. As reported here, “The hacking attempt was on the state’s voter registration system, not voting machines. Had hackers taken over the voter registration system, they could have suspended people’s registrations, creating confusion and long lines at the polls”. The attempt looked severe in the sense that hackers could have accessed voters address and other personal details like birth dates.

In the way ahead, it is significant to address that no voting method comes with a flawless detailing. The technology is itself prone to external threats and internal malfunctioning that can disrupt the electoral processes putting the larger democratic structure at risk. In such a context, it will only be appropriate to have a system with minimal risks and end-to-end secured mechanism.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.

Online Voting: Manipulation or Transparency

‘E-voting’ is used to denote a voting process over internet or intranet. The process enables the voters to cast a secure and secret ballot on an online medium. The goal of any voting system should be to ensure free and fair elections, and enforce unequal access of an individual to the electoral process. The advent of e-voting as a voting method majorly overcomes the digital distances and gaps across regions and states, functioning as a supplement system to traditional paper based voting. For any kind of voting method it is pivotal to set constitutional and legal conditions for its operation. Apart from that, election procedures must be transparent, and subject to public scrutiny.

E-voting, in terms of generic requirements list must be considered institutionally equivalent to traditional voting system, and eligibility with regards to registration and verification, free in terms of uncoercibility, no propaganda on e-voting site, non-valid voting capability, equal in terms of equality of candidates, equality of voters, one voter- one vote, secret with respect to secrecy and balance security vs transparency, and democratic with regards to trust, transparency, verifiability, accountability, reliability, security and simplicity. E-voting as an election procedure requires an efficient and viable infrastructure e.g. public internet kiosks, internet voting in government offices, so that citizens are allowed to exercise their voting rights. It is equally necessary to make this infrastructure easily accessible to the voter and create awareness about operational nuances of such procedures.

Ideal requirements in E-Voting

The significance of generic requirements for e-voting could be highlighted in following ways:

1. Eligibility ensures that the voter is registered and meets the requirements of eligibility

2. Secure registration and authentication to ensure that the principle of universal suffrage is being respected and that the elections are not being rigged

3. Free elections requires that elections take place without any violence, coercion, rigging, pressure and manipulative interferences or other influences exercised either by the state or other agencies

4. Un-coercibility and prevention of vote buying can be ensured by developing publicly accessible infrastructure, controlled physical sites and designing e-voting such that no voter can prove he/she voted in a particular way.

5 Freedom of decision the e-voting procedure should make technically infeasible the advertisement of political parties/candidates on the e-voting website.

6. Free expression of preferences the e-voting procedure should make technically infeasible the advertisement of political parties/candidates on the e-voting website

7. Equality regarding the political parties, candidates who participate in the elections, and equality regarding the voting rights of each voter.  Another element of equality among the parties to be elected is that the decision of the voter, as expressed through the online ballot, is transmitted and counted without changes or land interference.

8. Transparency ensures all parties have equal access to the elements of voting procedure, in order to establish its proper functioning.

8. Secrecy is the precondition of the voter’s free political decision. In democratic elections the link between the vote and the voter must be irreversible, in order to ensure that votes are cast freely.

E-Voting prone to manipulation?

The news of Russian hackers targeting the electoral systems of USA in 2016 presidential election alerted the states to bolster the defenses of their voting systems. The vulnerability of voter registration systems lies in the fact that many of them have a dilapidated technology– voter registration systems being decade old. It has been suggested in this analysis that hackers who gain access to them could erase voters’ entries or create fictitious ones and then mail in votes for fake personas. Other disadvantages of e-voting includes no one could control the voting process, prone to hackers’ attacks and data spoofing, DDOS (denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet, technical failures such as in poor administration the data can be lost or damaged, system malfunction in terms of falsification and manipulation in counting of votes.

In terms of voter check in, the use of tablet like devices to verify voters becomes vulnerable on account of hackers being able to target the networks to gain access to poll books, either shutting them down or altering data that’s on them. They could also break into the systems of companies that develop software for the poll books and insert malicious code. The other dangers are like that of gerrymandering raising the question of political squabbling within the rules of American democracy. In order to lessen such instances, states are made aware of such threats and enforced to take steps like running vulnerability scans on software, and gain a security clearance from the federal government. Other steps taken in the direction are like recording votes on the piece of paper so that one could go back and tally the recorded response, good security practices developed for securing government and industry databases.

E-Voting secured with Blockchain?

Blockchain technology is a chain of blocks, virtual and united in one huge computer network. The technology is presented in the form of a distributed database, where all information is stored on independent computers within a single network rather than in a single server or what a layman would understand as centralized manner. The Blockchain is built on a consensus system, thus, in order to hack it hackers would have to try really hard to attack such a system, and to do that they will have to hack each computer on the network. Besides, the unauthorized access attempts are immediately tracked by the system and recorded to history. Estonia has been able to use the online voting secured with blockchain technology — the government of Estonia announced the use of blockchain secured integration into voting technology. Other countries deploying blockchain e-voting among the inner party levels include Denmark, Australia. The method provides for accessibility, speed of vote counting, elimination of geographical issues, associated with physical presence and increased turnout rates in all categories of the population.

While there has been criticism against blockchain for its ability to fix the hard parts of securing online elections. Some have pointed out that hackers might compromise voters’ devices or the servers that record votes and log them to the blockchain, they can still manipulate election outcomes. However, the viability and feasibility of voting procedures must be evaluated in terms of ideal criteria listed above in the article. It is important to remember that any kind of voting procedure is only to ensure that an accountable and transparent functioning of democracy.

This piece is written by Manisha Chachra. Manisha is Associate Researcher at Govern.