Open Access Research Article

DIGITAL COLONIALISM IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: DATA OWNERSHIP, TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCY AND STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Author(s):
ITUNGO JOAN DR. RAJIV BHALLA
Journal IJLRA
ISSN 2582-6433
Access Open Access
Volume 3
Issue 8
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Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence has been a catalyst for a trend that has been dubbed “digital colonialism” the control of data, infrastructure and value by a handful of companies and states, mostly in the Global North, and increasingly in China. This paper will explore how this pattern works in three interwoven ways: extraction of data from populations in the Global South with weak or absent ownership rules; dependency on technology from the outside, such as cloud services, compute servers, and models; and structural inequality when AI systems developed in other parts of the world are applied to populations that are not theirs. The paper is doctrinal and comparative in nature and draws on evidence from the Kenyan, Ugandan, Rwandan, and Indian data protection regimes and the instruments of the African Union, to show that although individual consent data protection laws are necessary, they cannot alone solve a collective and economic problem. Enforcement is still sporadic, with courts and regulators beginning to chip away at it, as evidenced by the recent World coin ruling by the Kenyan High Court in 2025. The paper suggests that the elements of a credible digital sovereignty agenda are collective data rights, conditional localization with benefit-sharing, public compute investment, and labour standards for AI supply chains and South–South regulatory coordination.   Keywords: Digital Colonialism; Artificial Intelligence; Data Sovereignty; Global South; Data Protection; Technological Dependency.

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Authors: ITUNGO JOAN & DR. RAJIV BHALLARegistration ID: 1013647 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13647 & IJLRA13648 Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, India

Article Information

DIGITAL COLONIALISM IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: DATA OWNERSHIP, TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCY AND STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Authors: ITUNGO JOAN, DR. RAJIV BHALLA

  • Journal IJLRA
  • ISSN 2582-6433
  • Volume 3
  • Issue 8
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International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis

  • AbbreviationIJLRA
  • ISSN2582-6433
  • AccessOpen Access
  • LicenseCC 4.0

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