Digital ID capitalism: how emerging economies are re-inventing digital capitalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article adds to the literature on digital capitalisms by introducing a new state-led model called ‘digital ID capitalism’. Here, state agencies help guarantee personal data for commercial exploitation by connecting it to the provision of state welfare services. This is in contrast to the usual focus on US Big Tech corporations’ use of personal data from the internet. Describing how the system works in India, it explains how businesses make money from the personal data collected. While doing so, it draws some of its elements into traditional political economy concerns with the relationships between state, business and labour. The benefit of framing it as a capitalist system is that it sharpens the focus on the corresponding social relations and potential for group governance of this important twenty-first century resource.