Finger pointing

by | Sep 8, 2019 | ICT4D |

I remember hearing as I was growing up not point fingers at people and to remember that when I did there were always three pointing back at me. 

There is often an underlying assumption and smugness in social organisations that they are doing good and not those evil corporates. Thankfully this dualistic black and white thinking is not as prevalent as it once was, but you don’t have to scratch the surface much to realise it is still alive and well. 

The global justice index measures how well laws are enforced in various jurisdictions. It creates fascinating visualisations of this. The gig economy comes with benefits but there is also a growing realisation that it enables us to outsource work to places where there is no or weak labour law.  And most of us will have read stories of corporates using tax havens like Ireland to enable them to pay little tax on huge revenues and profit. The principle appears to be where is the bar the lowest; where can we do the least. 

It’s easy to become smug as a social organisation when we compare ourselves to poor corporate behaviour. We even campaign against such behaviour. We point the finger at them. 

And yet when it comes to data many of our organisations behave in a similar way. We pick and choose the lowest legal laws to abide by. If this were not true all of us would be abiding by the EU’s GDPR laws at a minimum. And yet most of our organisations choose not to because of all kinds of rational and justifiable reasons.  When we do, we are behaving similar to the corporates we campaign against. 

This is not to say that GDPR is perfect; it’s far from it. But if your concern or view is legal protection, then it’s the best out there. 

The choice is ours. 

Photo by Adi Goldstein

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