Data sovereignty is a topic I am familiar with from my involvement in government information technology projects that deal with personal information. Governments and businesses will take into account where personal data is geographically stored, and how that can impact controlling access to it, when deciding where to store data.[1] Datacentres planned to be built in New Zealand will provide the benefits of cloud storage that is relatively inexpensive and inclusive of backup and disaster recovery capabilities, while ensuring data remains onshore and subject to New Zealand law.[2] But how does data sovereignty relate to historical research?
I was involved in an oral history project for Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira in 2021 where the complexity of that question was brought home to me. For Māori, the kōrero tuku iho present in recorded interviews, just like physical artefacts, are taonga and subject to tikanga. Discussion of where to store and how to manage access to digital taonga for the project raised questions that were not easy to answer.[3] Cloud storage was obvious choice as critical, yet onerous housekeeping tasks would be taken care of. But could the Rūnanga be confident that access to taonga would be controlled? Would it be appropriate to send these digital taonga to another country or to a platform where unauthorised access might take place? These questions about data sovereignty led me to complete a research project about the gathering and storage of kōrero tuku iho. The topic continues to influence my approach to historical research.
Historical scholars who are gathering and manipulating data should consider data sovereignty, or who “owns” the data. For a given project, it is important to define the term “data sovereignty” in relation to that project; an analysis of the use of the term in journal articles has identified some ambiguity. Researchers should weigh up the benefits of sharing the data they gather versus keeping it private, the general shift to open data being in opposition to the idea that control of data should be retained by individuals, groups and communities.[4]
Historians working with data relating to Indigenous peoples can refer to the Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) framework, a global movement that has gained wide recognition since it was established in 2015. A survey of the key issues and principles of IDS, and how various nations are aware of and acknowledge it is a useful background to the topic.[5] A discussion of the historic impact of research on Indigenous peoples is available in Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonising Methodologies.[6] Those working with Māori data should familiarise themselves with the Treaty of Waitangi, in particular the relevance of Article II to Māori data sovereignty.[7] Te Mana Rauranga, the Māori Data Sovereignty network provides information and resources to support Māori research.[8]
You may of course, be one of many historical researchers who are dealing with data that is deemed “open access”. My current research project involves petitions submitted to the House of Representatives in the late nineteenth century. The petitions are held by Archives NZ and access to them is not restricted. I intend to digitise some petitions and publish them on a website. Unless they have previously been published (on a website, or in a book) the content of the petitions is not generally available. One of the aims of my project is to make the content of these petitions available. Should I address data sovereignty in relation to these petitions, given the data is open? Does data sovereignty only matter if the petitions have been submitted by Māori? If I were to gain the consent of the family of a petitioner, how would I go about doing that, and is there time available in my project to do that anyway? Should I just ignore data sovereignty if it might stop me successfully completing my project?
I recently attended a seminar about data sovereignty and how it relates to historical research where these and other questions were discussed at length. The group agreed that restrictions on access to data informed their choice of research project. That is, if access to an archive was impeded by the need to gain consent, Covid-19 restrictions, or protests at parliament, they were more likely to choose a topic with less constraints. As a group we were concerned at how the body of historical research currently (in the Covid-19 impacted era) being produced might be shaped by these constraints. Researchers might view addressing data sovereignty as an unnecessary constraint and avoid some topics altogether.
We didn’t come up with any concrete answers to any of the questions raised. However, we agreed that data sovereignty was an area we should address early on in our projects. After all, how would you feel if data relevant to you, your family or group you are connected to was published without your consent or involvement?
[1] Government Communications Security Bureau, ‘Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery’, New Zealand Information Security Manual (NZISM), Version 3.5, January 2022, https://www.nzism.gcsb.govt.nz/ism-document#4816, accessed 7 May 2022 [2] Both Microsoft and Amazon plan to build datacentres in New Zealand; Bob Glancy, ‘Microsoft to establish its first datacentre region in New Zealand’, Microsoft New Zealand News Centre, May 6, 2020, https://news.microsoft.com/en-nz/2020/05/06/aotearoa-disclosure/ accessed 7 May 2022; Chris Keall, ‘Amazon says it will spend ‘$7.5 billion’ on giant data centres in Auckland’, New Zealand Herald, 23 September, 2021, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/amazon-says-it-will-spend-75-billion-on-giant-data-centres-in-auckland/CRD5RLISXWWRXEB5YJXKIT6S5A/ , accessed 7 May 2022. [3] Rob Perks, ‘Are you legal and ethical? Dealing with GDPR’ in Oral History Society Everybody’s story matters, version 5.0 August 2019, http://www.ohs.org.uk/advice/data-protection/ accessed 8 May 2022. [4] Patrik Hummel, Matthias Braun, Max Tretter, Peter Dabrock, ‘Data sovereignty: A review’ in Big data & society, 2021-01, Vol.8, pp.1-17 https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720982012 [5] Stephanie Carroll Rainie, Tahu Kukutai, Maggie Walter, Oscar Luis Figueroa-Rodriguez, Jennifer Walker, and Per Axelsson, ‘Indigenous data sovereignty’ in The State of Open Data : Histories and Horizons, Walker, B. and Tim Davies, (Oxford: African Minds), 2019. https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2375564 [6] Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, (New York: Zed Books; Dunedin: University of Otago Press), 1999. [7] Taiuru, Karaitiana, ‘Māori Data Sovereignty and Digital Colonisation’ in Karaitiana Taiuru, September 10, 2020 https://www.taiuru.maori.nz/maori-data-sovereignty-and-digital-colonisation/ accessed 1 April 2022 [8] Te Mana Raraunga Māori Data Sovereignty Network https://www.temanararaunga.maori.nz/ accessed 1 April 2022
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