Re: Adding a statement on political implications in LOC

Dear Mark,

Very interesting point, regarding the scope.

Currently there's a note on "Focus of DPVCG on privacy and data protection"
at https://dev.dpvcg.org/2.2/dpv/#scope-change
Can your concerns be addressed there?

For convenience, I will put it here as well:
----
Note: Focus of DPVCG on privacy and data protection

Though the scope of DPVCG has expanded significantly from 'personal
data' to also include 'any data and technologies', the primary focus
of the group remains on privacy and data protection. Therefore, while
the group is developing work such as the [AI] and [EU-AIAct]
extensions, it is also interested in understanding how these involve
personal data and affect privacy and data protection, and how the DPV
and its extensions can help address concerns - such as through
taxonomies to support risk and impact assessments in [RISK] extension.

The DPVCG welcomes work associated with [AI] or [EU-AIAct] and other
similar activities which go beyond privacy and data protection, such
as AI specific risks and impacts. Such additions are useful to support
the group's primary objectives as they help discuss and determine when
risks and impacts involve personal data and have an effect on privacy
and data protection.
----

I see GDPR more like a "league" (like the famous Hanseatic League,
which in a way an "inspiration" to today's EEA)
as a main driver for adoption outside the EU is basically trade, and
not necessary colonisation
in a sense that the bigger powers decide the way of life and those
much much lesser powers just have to accept that,
since there is also another league like Global Cross-Border Privacy
Rules (which is basically a direct competition to GDPR) as well.

Of course, smaller markets don't have that many to choose from, but at
least they have some agency.
Countries that adopt provisions from GDPR for their data protection
law (either new one or amendment of existing) also pick and choose.

I think the second paragraph of the proposed statement to the LOC also
addressed this very nature of pick and choose
("Further, due to the modular nature of DPV, it is feasible and
practical to create extensions ...
adopters have a choice to create and utilise (and to propose to the
DPVCG) other models ....")
and that can be applied generally of DPV, not only LOC.


regards,
Art

On Sat, 2 Aug 2025 at 00:27, Mark @ 0PN <mark@0pn.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Harsh,
>
> I also have concerns about the politics of DPV, in that the privacy vocabulary represented a new form of colonisation.  In my perspective of a social anthropologist, the data privacy vocabulary is GDPR based, which is based on a national data protection legislation framework.  Which is inherently a permission and surveillance, not a transaprency and consent framework.  In this regard, applying the GDPR - national legislation framework as a model for the rest of the world is a form of digital colonisation, which does not account for transparency and consent for digital identification, nor is it complaint to international treaty, Convention 108+, in respect to how it is defined.
>
> In this regard, I think more consideration is required, and the at the DPV should be clear it is a data protection vocabulary, not a data privacy vocabulary that scales internationally.  Please provide a notice to include this context.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Mark
>
> > On 1 Aug 2025, at 07:37, Harshvardhan Pandit <me@harshp.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi All.
> > In the last meeting [1] we discussed the modelling of jurisdictions and
> > how this has political implications which we may not have intended or
> > thought about. We then agreed to add a disclaimer to the LOC extension
> > regarding this. Please review it at:
> > https://dev.dpvcg.org/2.2/loc/#introduction with the contents copied
> > below for convenience. For feedback / suggestions, please use
> > https://github.com/w3c/dpv/issues/328 preferably or reply to this email..
> >
> > ---
> > Note: IMPORTANT: Statement on Geo-Political Implications
> >
> > Locations and jurisdictions are contentious concepts and are subject to
> > political conflicts and disputes. The authors and contributors for this
> > document, as well as other members and participants in the W3C DPVCG,
> > are providing this document and associated resources with the sole goal
> > of facilitating reference to locations and jurisdictions through a
> > machine-readable vocabulary. To avoid any unwanted political
> > implications of this work, we have utilised the ISO 3166 standard as a
> > reflection of global consensus (in as much as has been made possible)
> > with further links to UN resources. Any mistakes or lapses in this
> > resource are not intentional and we welcome efforts to highlight and fix
> > them.
> >
> > Further, due to the modular nature of DPV, it is feasible and practical
> > to create extensions that represent an intended modelling of
> > jurisdictions within the legal namespace, similar to how laws and
> > authorities have been modelled. Thus, adopters have a choice to create
> > and utilise (and to propose to the DPVCG) other models of locations
> > based on requirements for each specific jurisdiction.
> > ---
> >
> > [1] https://w3id.org/dpv/meetings/meeting-2025-07-30
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > Harshvardhan J. Pandit, Ph.D
> > Research Fellow @ AI Accountability Lab
> > Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
> > https://harshp.com/
> >
> >
>
>

Received on Monday, 4 August 2025 06:56:03 UTC