What is meant by data governance? What laws/policies are countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia bringing in to protect data privacy?
How are different countries in the region tackling possible conflicts between the needs for data privacy and the right to information?
These were some of the concepts discussed at the online training on ‘Influencing Data Governance Policy in South and South East Asia,’ organized recently by LIRNEasia. The training which was organized under the ‘Harnessing Data for Development in South and Southeast Asia’ https://lirneasia.net/2023/07/data-for-governance/) project, saw more than thirty participants from seven countries (Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan), joining in to listen to experts discussing laws and policies related to data governance in the region.
The training started with principal co investigators for the Data for Development project Helani Galpaya and Pranesh Prakash providing an introduction to the project and to concepts related to data governance. Country researchers from India (Pranesh Prakash), Indonesia (Ibrahim Kholilul Rohman), Nepal (Semanta Dahal), Sri Lanka (Ashwini Natesan), Thailand (Jompon Pitaksanthayothin), the Philippines (Oliver Reyes), and Pakistan (Muhammad Aslam Hayat ), then discussed a particular aspect of their country’s laws, followed by an overview of trends in the region. The researchers touched on areas such as possible conflicts between laws and how these have been resolved (or have not been resolved), the need for trade offs, challenges in balancing privacy requirements and access to data, and the importance of consultative processes in formulating laws and policies. As noted by Pranesh Prakash, ‘ There are no perfect solutions, only imperfect trade offs’.
The second part of the training focused on methods of engaging effectively in influencing policy and communicating research to policy makers. Rohan Samarajiva, Chair LIRNEasia and Grace Mirandilla-Santos, shared their experiences in policy making with the participants. Participants also had the opportunity to interact with each other and the resource persons through group assignments which considered the question of how laws could be improved /designed to ensure data could be used for machine learning for development purposes.
This online training is the first step in nurturing a network of policy intellectuals working in the area of data governance in South Asia and South East Asia, and enhance their ability to influence data policy in their countries and in the region. The training which was held online on the 10th and 11th of December, 2024 was organised by LIRNEasia with support from IDRC.
