Going digital quickly has its downsides

By the middle of next year, new passport holders will no longer have to stand in long queues at immigration counters, for they will simply need to swipe their e-passports and zip past. Another report tells us that the National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill, 2010, will have our academic records digitised so that they can be easily accessed by us and our potential employers. UIDs (Unique Identification) are slated to arrive by 2011, enabling everyone from NREGA recipients to high net worth individuals to have a digital identity. Our voting went electronic years ago.

Indians have been some of the fastest adopters of technology in Asia, and that is saying a lot. As people who were bombarded with too much too soon, we have taken to technology like fish to water. But at the same time, we have thrown caution to the winds when uploading our lives online. This indiscretion is justified if we are to compare the ease of using e-options to standing in line for just about everything.

Electronic transactions are what suit us best, as evidenced by the number of ATMs in India when compared even to the developed countries. Besides, there are social pressures to keep on digitising. It’s the master narrative. Just like you weren’t seen as progressive if you weren’t pro-liberalisation, you are seen as a fogey if you are not in with technology.

But there are caveats to digital nirvana. We may love technology, but we have not taken basic precautions on safeguarding privacy and guarding our digital information from intruders. With so much of our personal information getting stored in cyberspace and hard drives, we stand to lose both money and privacy if these fall into the wrong hands. Not only do we need a strong law to regulate how our digital data is stored and shared, but there needs to be strong deterrent punishment for transgressors. Leapfrogging the digital world can be heady, but we now need to be prepare for the downside.