There is No Room for Compromise on Digital Sovereignty

With the globalization of information technology and increasing digitalization, our overall lifestyle is gradually becoming Internet-online dependent. As we embrace digitalization beyond the era of traditional manual information services, we have started falling into a complex and uncertain cycle of different types of insecurity. Although this is more or less a global reality, in Bangladesh, the insecurity in this sector has been captured by the corruption and geopolitical vicious circle existing in the country. In particular, the India-friendly and India-dependent activities of the previous Awami fascist government have pushed the country’s digital security and economic management to the brink of a deep abyss. There are allegations of direct involvement of Sajib Wazed Joy, the son of the then Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and IT advisor, in the activities of selling the personal information of crores of citizens from the NID server to foreigners, putting national security at extreme risk. If the July coup had not happened, the nation might not have known about these things yet. A report published on October 24 revealed that the then responsible persons sold the information of 11 crore voters with NID cards from the Election Commission’s server to foreigners for Tk 20,000 crore. After the police arrested former director of the data center Tarek M. Barkat Ullah in a case filed on this allegation, the names of Sajib Wazed Joy, Junaid Ahmed Palak and 19 others involved in it were known. In exchange for transactions and sharing worth thousands of crores of taka, a company named Digicon Global was given permission to access the personal information servers of 112 million citizens. Taking this opportunity, the company sold this information to 182 domestic and foreign companies. Whatever the situation, there is no room for retreat from the reality of digitalization. In the reality of transitioning from government-private information services, healthcare, education, employment, business-commerce, banking services to a cashless exchange system, digitalization and cyber security must be given special priority.

In the name of digitalization, the previous government committed an unforgivable crime of handing over the confidential information of the country’s citizens and national security issues to foreigners. A report published in Inqilab yesterday revealed that sensitive information of Bangladesh is going into the hands of Indian companies due to the purchase or exchange of bandwidth from India. According to India’s Information Technology Act 2000 and Telecommunications Act 2023, at least 10 agencies including intelligence agencies ‘RAW’, NIB, CBI can monitor, decrypt or analyze any type of cable flowing through India. Due to the purchase of bandwidth from India and the supply or export of bandwidth from Bangladesh to the northern provinces of India, important information of Bangladesh is going into the hands of Indian companies. Along with this, India has to pay crores of dollars annually in the name of International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) operator charges. In other words, in the name of dependence on India in Bangladesh’s information technology management, the security of the entire system has been handed over to them. They are eating the tree, picking the leaves, and if given the opportunity, they are not shying away from plotting to empty the state treasury by hacking the SWIFT code. Sheikh Hasina’s government has put Bangladesh’s digital security system in a terrible crisis by handing over the responsibility of managing important information, including the Bangladesh Bank server, to Indians.

In line with the world, the country’s economy has become increasingly dependent on online and information technology. At the same time, the irony and insecurity of this sector are increasing in parallel. In particular, the access and interference of other countries’ institutions on digital sovereignty has emerged as a major crisis. Despite the government facing many challenges in the context of global and regional realities after the July coup, positive trends and expectations have emerged in almost all areas. Especially in terms of addressing the gas, electricity, and energy crises, government officials have expressed expectations that the problem will soon be brought down to a tolerable level. Although the long stagnation in investment has not yet been overcome, there are reports of positive growth in remittance flows and garment exports. The main controller of the plan that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has adopted to transform the country into a trillion-dollar economy in the next few years may be to take effective steps to eliminate all kinds of insecurity by taking into account gas, electricity, and energy security as well as information technology and digital security issues in the light of the new reality. In order to utilize the potential of earning billions of dollars by transforming the country’s vast manpower into skilled human resources in the IT sector, the electricity and energy crisis must first be eliminated. At the same time, the dependency on internet connectivity and bandwidth must be eliminated.

The overall data and information management must be updated to eliminate the insecurity that was created by selling the information of crores of citizens to foreigners during the previous government. Just as the demand for electricity is increasing due to increasing population, urbanization and industrialization, maintaining internet bandwidth security and mobility is also becoming a major challenge due to digitalization, smartphones and the multifaceted use of information technology. Information technology experts say that the world’s internet bandwidth demand may reach 27 terabytes per second from 13.2 terabytes per second in the next 2 years. In this case, the big challenge for Bangladesh may be to deal with the bandwidth crisis between the old (SEA-ME-WE-4) submarine cable connection and the connection to (SEA-ME-WE-6) by 2030. Along with the country’s electricity and energy crisis, the government must also keep in mind the issue of internet bandwidth crisis in the next few years. Although it is not possible to solve it overnight, additional importance must be given to maximum use of existing facilities and security issues. Private sector initiatives must be unblocked to meet the demand for internet gateways and bandwidth.