Editor,
As the Meghalaya government unleashed the Integrated Command and Control System (ICCC) at Umsawli in New Shillong Township, calibrating state-of-the-art data analytics to application programming interface to have a better understanding and leveraging Shillong city into a transformative one. Are we heading towards a digital panopticon?
The United Nations predicts that by 2050, 55 per cent of the world’s population will reside in urban areas, with an increase to 68 per cent. Going by data with land space getting more expensive and restrictive, we are clearing the roadmap for the rise of the machines. Recently, experts from various fields, from academia to industry specialists, gathered at the National Law University Meghalaya for a two-day conference titled ‘Era of Disruption’.
The conference focused on how Artificial Intelligence will shape the future of the next generation of leaders. The event was held at the university’s location in Mayurbhanj, and it certainly signals a significant evolutionary shift in legal studies. Furthermore, the importance of checks and balances is evident. The Frontline magazine, in its January 18, 2019, cover story titled “Snooping State,” highlighted how ten central agencies were empowered to monitor, intercept, and decode communications under the direction of the Union Home Ministry.
Biometrics and facial recognition were once fantasy story lines on Hollywood movies like Eagle Eye or Enemy of the State, but today they are reality tools which, left unchecked, can turn rogue in the wrong hands. A major blow was on June 6, 2013 when The Guardian and The Washington Post brought to light the PRISM program which left the US National Security Agency at the centre of the storm and the Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) becoming a subject of extensive oversight.
Agencies like Research and Analysis Wing, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Directorate of Signals Intelligence in the Army are of utmost importance with the growing digital influence of China and Russia but turning them into lethal engines for public monitoring will be nerve-wracking concerning skirmishes in Bangladesh and Manipur.
Edward Snowden memoir, ‘Permanent Record’, on how one man was engaged in building a system for mass surveillance, eventually leading him to bring it down for the greater good.
Christopher Gatphoh,
Laitkor Rngi, Shillong-10
