Internet access has been ruled a constitutional right by the Supreme Court. The Indian constitution renders every citizen ‘s right to freedom of speech and expression a fundamental right. It is referred to in Article 19(1)(a ) of the Constitution. The new extension allows the constitutional provision to keep pace with technical progress. For millions of Indian people, the Internet is the primary source of information. The same advantages can be used by a non-citizen, but he can not assert it as his constitutional right. The ruling of the Supreme Court is also consistent with the proposal of the United Nations that every country should make Internet access a fundamental right. This is a big step towards democratizing technology and given the fundamental importance of technology to human dignity and equality, this new constitutional right is aimed at facilitating the fair distribution of technical advantages and avoiding the negative use of technology. This proposal is made with the expectation that this fundamental right will also be recognized in constitutional law by other countries, ensuring that the right to technology is secured internationally.
Today there are 4.5 billion internet users worldwide and the number is increasing day by day. Democratizing technology for growth and access to essential technologies must be carried out in a sustainable manner, in the same way as public goods or commodities are constructed for society. Leaving this in the hands of private corporations such as Google or Facebook, without recourse to local regulations, brings with it various known and unknown threats, including digital monopolisation, monetisation of private data, and financial and privacy losses due to international security breaches. Other issues, mainly national security threats, are brought to the fore, relying on other state actors like China for technology growth. Instead, as a “shared [national] resource in which each stakeholder has an equal interest,” digital commons must be produced and deployed.
Democratizing technology with the five foundational attributes of universal access, bias towards inclusion, sacrosanct rights, direct recourse to the law and continuous innovation is essential to uphold techno-citizenship and, consequently, techno-sovereignty in this new world order driven by technology and digital platforms. The pandemic has only served to accelerate the world toward this inevitable conclusion. India is a first mover in this novel idea of democratizing technology and developing digital public goods. The world must now come together with forward momentum on these five attributes to usher an era of ‘tech for all’ and ‘tech by all.’
