Digitalisation without rights protections

INTERNATIONAL actors funding Digital Public Infrastructure in post-conflict societies risk creating surveillance systems whilst pursuing economic inclusion.

- By Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa

Drawing on evidence from Sri Lanka, UNDP analysis, and comparative cases, Sanjana Hattotuwa argues that donors must condition DPI support on verifiable rights protections, including trilingual communications, consultations, and legal safeguards, before disbursement, not as governance afterthoughts.

In January 2026, I spoke to around 60 local Government officials, teachers, civil society leaders, and A/L students in Moneragala. Not one person knew about the 30 billion rupee digitalisation programme proceeding towards unprecedented biometric data collection in the country. None had heard of the draconian Online Safety Act (OSA), passed in January 2024, granting sweeping state powers over expression. None understood that a national digital identity system was advancing without a single official document anywhere online in Sinhala or Tamil - the languages the majority in the country speak. To be clear, these weren't disconnected or marginalised individuals. They were very active on social media platforms, and consuming news from online and offline sources. Yet they remained entirely unaware of draconian laws impacting their freedom of expression online, and digitalisation’s impact as an inflection point for citizenship, and rights in Sri Lanka.

This information vacuum, and significant knowledge gap signals a pattern emerging across the Global South. Development actors fund Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) whilst accepting economic sequencing recommendations but ignoring rights prerequisites. The result risks what I have come to call ‘efficient authoritarianism’: technically sophisticated systems encoding discrimination, enabling surveillance, and excluding the populations they claim to serve.