Today, we are split into two generations. The first is the generation born in the 1980s and earlier, currently celebrating with the sentiment, “We are witnesses to a magnificent new digital revolution; our previous generations did not have this privilege.” Having experienced firsthand the slow pace and corruption of the pre-digital era, they happily embraced digital life after noticing how significantly these issues were reduced under the new information age systems. The second is the generation born from the 1990s onward. They are digital natives who know nothing outside of digital, information technology, and smartphone systems. For them, a time without smartphones is merely “history” to be read or heard about. Their natural impression is that the world back then was a pit of hardships. Their experiential understanding is that “surveillance is life” and “this is just how life is.” Just as no one today has personal experience of a time without media, this generation lacks any personal experience of a time without smartphones.
Both those who have blindly embraced the digital world and those born directly into it lack awareness of the dangers that a “life under surveillance” can bring—or at least, they lack full awareness. This is not just a story of an individual’s personal data. Imagine what happens when the collective data of an entire country’s population becomes available to another nation. Google Maps and Google Earth possess the home addresses, names, and phone numbers of almost everyone in the world. In addition to the data these apps gather directly, the information obtained from indirect sources (Big Data) is even more staggering. All of this rests with agencies like the CIA and the NSA. Just imagine what would happen if Pakistan’s ISI managed to get a fraction of it.
Those who are aware of such dangers are not digitally naive. They have witnessed every transformation of the digital world with their own eyes. In fact, some are the very creators of this digital revolution. They are now consumed by regret and anxiety, realizing, “What we envisioned was one thing, but the path it is taking is entirely another.” Take, for instance, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the scientist who created the World Wide Web and handed it to humanity, or Geoffrey Hinton, widely celebrated as the “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence” and a 2024 Nobel Prize laureate. Such experts now label this current “revolution” as a “Digital Dystopia.”
Even the Government of India’s initiatives heavily rely on Google. Backed by the central government, the company PhonePe launched an Android app store named the “Indus Appstore.” (It is worth noting that PhonePe carries the backing of American retail giant Walmart). For this store to function properly, and for many apps downloaded from it to work, “Google Play Services” must be active on your Android phone. The justification offered is that “since Google owns the Android operating system, Google Play Services is required for app security.” Yet, Google itself does not approve of the Indus Appstore. Users must alter certain settings and download it like a standalone APK file via “sideloading”—almost like a stealth operation. Google even flashes a warning message: “APK files are unsafe, beware!” When Google does not approve of the store itself, why should the apps inside it require Google’s approval?
None of the apps in “F-Droid”—an app store built by the open-source community—require Google’s approval. They function seamlessly on phones that have neither a Google account nor Play Services. Yet, government apps downloaded directly from our own government-backed app store, as well as our banking and UPI apps, absolutely require approval from Google and Apple!
If you cannot completely eliminate the dependence on Google the way F-Droid did, then what is the purpose of a government app store? What grand sovereignty are you achieving through it? Why is something that was possible for F-Droid impossible for you?
Smartphones may offer numerous benefits to people, but shouldn’t there also be an awareness of how much is being lost? Reducing Google’s monopoly over commercial app transactions should not be the sole objective. Forgetting the strategic and geopolitical dimensions behind these technologies is dangerous.
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