Privacy and autonomy: Redefining boundaries for Indigenous communities

In 2019, the Waorani achieved a huge legal victory against the Ecuadorian government. They opposed the sale of millions of hectares of their rainforest to new oil companies, a forest that forms part of the home and territory of seven different Indigenous peoples in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. Nemonte Nenquimo, as the first female leader of the Waorani of Pastaza and co-founder of the nonprofit Alianza Ceibo, and plaintiff in this case, has been a powerful advocate for her community’s relationship with their territories. She emphasized the core of this relationship when reflecting on their legal battle, ‘the government tried to sell our lands to the oil companies without our permission. Our rainforest is our life. We decide what happens in our lands. We will never sell our rainforest to the oil companies.’

Currently, the Maasai people from Ngorongoro Conservation Area, in Tanzania, face the threat of eviction as part of a government plan to displace over 80,000 residents (mostly Indigenous Maasai), further dispossessing them of their ancestral lands- again. Although this plan is presented under the guise of fortress conservation its underlying and secretive aim appears to benefit elite tourism and hunting interests. According to Joseph Oleshangay, a Maasai human rights lawyer and activist leading this case, ‘Despite legal protection, Maasai in Ngorongoro have faced broken promises, restrictions on securing livelihoods, diminished social services, and now threats of eviction.’

Territory, stories, and data

At first glance, these stories may seem very different, emerging from distinct parts of the world and involving various communities, threats, and actors. However, they share important commonalities. Both cases highlight the struggle against the colonial history of land dispossession faced by Indigenous peoples. In these stories, the land is often viewed as a commodity to be exchanged for profit, overlooking its profound connection with their identity and existence. As the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recognises, Indigenous peoples have deep spiritual, cultural, social, and economic connections with their lands, territories, and resources. So, land and identity are intertwined rights for Indigenous peoples; identity ‘is deeply rooted in centuries of love and care for the land, embodied in ancestral knowledge, stories, language, songs, and spiritual practices.’

Beyond their ties to the land, both cases use a shared strategy to assert their rights: creating maps. In both instances, community mappers utilised a technology known as Mapeo, designed for communities worldwide to map and document their territories, including changes, practices, sacred places, and external threats. This innovative tool is based on a decentralised or peer-to-peer approach, which enables users to collaborate in collecting data without the need for a server or internet connection.

The information gathered through Mapeo allows these communities to tell their own stories about the territories they inhabit, recording transformations, the significance of sacred sites, patterns of resource use, and the threats they face: oil spills, mining operations, and illegal loggers, among others. They aim to preserve this knowledge for future generations, while also using it as evidence in advocacy and legal strategies.

Data sovereignty

The collected data and digital tools in these cases serve as powerful instruments to challenge government and corporate narratives about the land. To these communities, territories should be defined not by external observers but by their lived experiences and realities. This underscores a deeper tension over who holds the authority and information to tell these stories and shape the identities of millions of Indigenous people.

This issue has been examined as a struggle over data ownership, drawing clear parallels between historical and contemporary forms of exploitation. As Couldry and Mejias have explained, while historic settler colonialism seised land and resources for settlers’ profit, data colonialism extends this logic into the digital realm by normalising the appropriation and exploitation of communities through data. In response, discussions about data control have led to the concept of Indigenous data sovereignty as a means to address representation gaps and reinforce self-determination. Concrete applications of these ideas can be seen through the OCAP principles (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession) developed by Indigenous communities in Canada. These principles are essential as they assert Indigenous authority over data related to them, guiding research and data practices to uphold their rights and agency.

We believe that focusing on data rights is an important step in the right direction. However, we also assert that the struggle over data collection and narrative ownership extends beyond data rights; it fundamentally addresses issues of privacy and the right to self-determination.

Privacy and autonomy

Privacy is a fundamental right, essential to autonomy and the protection of human dignity, serving as the foundation upon which many other human rights are built. In modern society, the deliberation around privacy is a debate about modern freedoms. We believe that the ability to enjoy and exercise the right to privacy enables people to establish space and boundaries, and thus grants them freedom to define themselves through self-actualisation and development of their identity and free thought.

But what does this right mean for Indigenous communities striving to protect their lands and ways of life? How can we expand the notion of privacy beyond the abstract, adapting it to fit these unique contexts?

For these communities, the freedom to define themselves includes the right to control their data on their own terms. This right encompasses data related to their land, which is intrinsic to their identity. However, data control alone is not sufficient. To truly tell their stories and maintain their relationship with their territory, Indigenous communities must have the freedom to define themselves and assert their right to self-determination and autonomy. Privacy should also provide a space to challenge power dynamics: strong privacy standards act as a tool for the vulnerable to counterbalance those in power. To achieve this, we must broaden our understanding of this right.

As feminism has shown, privacy discourse can perpetuate the myth of the “sovereign subject,” a model that presumes individuals are inherently “free, self-possessive, and equally capable of entering into contracts”. This model neglects the historical exploitation and exclusion of certain groups from being recognised as full individuals. While feminist critiques often highlight the exclusion of women, this analysis is equally relevant to other historically and systematically oppressed populations, such as the Indigenous Peoples worldwide.

Examining privacy beyond abstract concepts and through the lens of lived experiences requires acknowledging how privacy has been co-opted and misused by oppressive systems. But it also opens up possibilities to redefine privacy as a shield, allowing communities to manage their own boundaries, control their resources, and assert their right to live free from interference. In this way, privacy acts as a barrier, protecting these communities from societal, governmental, and corporate forces that may seek to assert control over them. It serves as a safeguard for human dignity and an enabler of autonomy.

In international human rights law, the right to privacy is enshrined in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” While this right has remained unchanged for a long time, the ways in which it is understood and applied are increasingly contested.

Towards a collective, land-based sense of privacy

We believe that human rights standards can and should evolve to include community-based conceptions of privacy, which would empower communities to assert their right to self-determination and, consequently, protect their lands. This requires an understanding of Article 12 in conjunction with Article 3 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms their right to self-determination, and Article 1, which recognises the right of indigenous peoples to enjoy rights and freedoms both individually and collectively. Additionally, the UN Declaration, Article 12, acknowledges the right of indigenous peoples to o maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.

For Indigenous peoples, the right to privacy should be intrinsically tied to the land, which is not seen as individual possession but as a shared, collective heritage. Their struggle for autonomy and self-determination extends beyond individual rights to a collective right, one that defends the community as a whole.

This recognition also requires protection from intrusive surveillance. The more intelligence collected on individuals and communities, the more predictable and manipulable their thoughts and actions become. Ironically, digital tools intended to document territories can increase the ease with which governments, corporations, and other entities track, monitor, and collect information about these communities without their knowledge. Research has shown that land defenders using digital tools are exposed to new invasive surveillance threats, including phone tapping, device hacking, and tracking. In this context, technology meant to protect and empower communities can inadvertently expose them to even greater (and physical) risks.

This underscores the urgent need for a redefined understanding of privacy and a robust privacy safeguards. Indigenous Peoples must be able to control their privacy and their narratives without fear of exploitation or surveillance. Only through the recognition of these rights can they fully assert their self-determination and protect their land, culture, and heritage from external forces that seek to dominate or control them.