Data Colonialism: How Powerful Nations Control the Digital Lives of the Global South

-- By KavisaraManeepun - 24 Mar 2025

Introduction

In the 19th century, colonial powers sought natural resources; however, in the 21st century, they seek data as well. Nowadays, big tech companies control global data flows and digital infrastructure such as cloud platform, undersea cables and data centers, often at the expense of developing countries in Global South. Companies like Google, Huawei, and Microsoft collect massive user data to expand their economic power while controlling key internet infrastructure. As developing nations rely more on these external digital platforms, they face risks of privacy violations, limiting their technological sovereignty. This paper examines how data colonization impacts the Global South and questions whether common solutions like localization would truly restore digital sovereignty, or it just shift control from foreign actors to domestic ones without deeper system of surveillance and exploitation.

What is Data Colonialism?

Under the past colonial, the colonialism refers to the control of physical land, labor and natural resources. Today, with new technology, a new form of colonial has been emerged, known as a “data colonialism”. Under this concept, data represents as a new form of resource appropriation dominated by at least two poles of colonial powers: Western and Chinese tech giants. These two tech giants create communication networks with the sole aim of collecting data, profiting from it, and retaining it as raw material for data analytics 1.

Infrastructure and Surveillance

Global South countries, including South Asia, Latin America, and Africa, use tech giant companies’ digital platforms, such as Google cloud storage, Amazon internet, or Huawei AI, to store and manage their national data. However, the external ownership of these infrastructures means that these countries maintain none or minimal control of how their citizens’ information is access, used or profited from. The lack of control has generated rising concern about surveillance activities, digital exploitation and dependency issues.

China’s export of surveillance technology to Zimbabwe shows how data colonialism operates alongside authoritarianism. The Zimbabwe government installed China’s Cloudwalk facial recognition systems to monitor activists 2, even though there are no clear laws regulating how the data is used. This allows foreign companies to profit from surveillance in countries with weak legal protections, without facing accountability. Also, Zimbabwe’s use of Huawei telecom infrastructure follows a similar pattern. The government continues to rely on Huawei despite the fact that the company’s security practices have led to restrictions in countries like the United States 3. While this decision is largely driven by cost (Huawei offers affordable technology that other providers may not) this affordability creates long-term dependency. When essential digital infrastructure comes mainly from foreign companies with little transparency, control and profit stay with those companies, while poorer nations bear the cost in lost of privacy and autonomy.

Legal Gaps and Public Unawareness

The challenges faced by the Global South countries are not purely a failure of governance but also a result of the lack of awareness and imbalance of power in the structure of the global digital system. People in many developing countries lack knowledge about the collection or use of their data. As Scholar Couldry and Mejias said, the digital platforms usually become people’s everyday interaction without them realizing what they are giving up 4. At the same time, unlike European countries that have strong data privacy regulation like GDPR, countries in the Global South mostly lack such protection, making it easy for big tech companies to use these data for their own profit. Moreover, even where the law exists, the penalties are sometimes too weak to stop the violation. For example, Uber still operates even in breach of local law since the cost of penalties for running a business is lower than the benefit of operating it (e.g., in 2016, a French court fined Uber for running illegal services) 5.

Pathways to Digital Sovereignty

While data localization has considered as a way of digital autonomy-reclaiming strategy, this belief needs closer evaluation. The location of data has become a proxy for individual freedom, but it does not address the deeper structures of control. Local servers alone cannot prevent against surveillance or authoritarian exploitation unless rules governing data collection, access and use are fundamental changed. In other words, localized infrastructure in countries with weak accountability or authoritarian regimes does not enhance digital rights but rather simply transfer of control from foreign tech giants to domestic authorities. Data localization therefore must be part of a broader approach that includes transparent governance, strong legal protections, public oversight, and structural limits on both corporate and state surveillance. True digital sovereignty depends not only on where data is stored, but on how it is governed and whose interests it ultimately serves.

Conclusion

Today’s tech giants control data similarly to how colonial powers control land and resources, leaving the Global South with limited digital autonomy. To reclaim digital sovereignty, it requires not only just localization, but also demands legal reform, public oversight and accountable governance, so that the control over data truly serve the people rather than reproducing power

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