Tag Archives: Data sovereignty

Module 3 Post 1 – Indigenous Language Speech Recognition

Te reo Maori Speech Recognition: A Story of Community, Trust and Sovereignty 

The work that the Maori people have done over the years to preserve their language is truly an inspiration. The Maori along with Hawaiians have been leading the way in Indigenous language revitalization for a very long time. This is another example of how they are leading the way and continue to be an inspiration for many people working in Indigenous language revitalization.

Speech recognition software

Te Hiku Media which is a charitable media organization, collectively belonging to the Far North iwi of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupouri, Ngai Takoto, Te Rārawa and Ngāti Kahu has adapted existing open sourced speech recognition software to understand the Maori language Te Reo Maori. This type of work is essential to developing virtual worlds where people can learn Indigenous languages. For example, if a virtual person in a metaverse type of environment was programmed to understand an Indigenous language with the speech recognition software, and could in turn speak back in said Indigenous language, a person could practice speaking in a virtual world as much as they wanted.

Data Sovereignty

Data sovereignty is another very important topic that is touched on in this video. Kaitiakitanga License is a license that Te Hiku Media is working on in order to protect their data. Their goal is to have only Maori led organizations and initiatives have access to their data, at least initially. They would also return a portion of profits made from the data back to the communities from which the data came.

 

Module 2 – Post 3 – OCAP Principles (data sovereignty)

The First Nations Principles of OCAP were created by the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) and established how data belonging to First Nations will be collected, protected, used, or shared. The acronym stands for Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession.

The principles were created with the understanding that Indigenous Peoples understand their own needs and are in the best position to govern their own information. Data sovereignty is a crucial step toward Indigenous People’s self-determination.

When described on the FNIGC website, the principles are explicitly applicable to research and information governance, but I see potential to use them as a way to discuss data sovereignty in educational technology. For example, if you look at the Privacy Policy for the online engagement and brainstorming tool Padlet, they say:

“When you access or use the Service, you are deemed to consent to the collection, use, retention, transfer, structuring, manipulation, storage, transmission and/or disclosure (collectively, “processing”) of your information as described in this Policy and in accordance with applicable laws.”

So when we talk about the risks of educational technology, especially of online teaching tools or authoring applications, we must consider data sovereignty within our own principles of design. OCAP is one model that can start a discussion in this area.

M1 P3 Blockchain and Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Another area of interest I have is Indigenous Data Sovereignty. Using blockchain to ensure that sensitive information reaches the intended audience has the potential to alleviate many concerns that different Indigenous groups may have in regards to recording and documenting culturally sensitive information.  Indigenous people may be more willing to record and disseminate culturally sensitive information digitally if there were secure options to do so. For example, the Plains Apache family that Prins (2002) had worked with were reluctant to film the ritual of the medicine bundle as they deemed it too sensitive to be recorded. If blockchain was an available technology at the time, the Plains Apache family may have felt more secure about recording that culturally sensitive ceremony if they knew that it would only be viewed by an audience they were comfortable sharing it with.

 

Prins, Harald E.L., “Visual Media and the Primitivist Perplex: Colonial Fantasies, Indigenous Imagination, and Advocacy in North America,” in Media Worlds: Anthropology on a New Terrain, eds. Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 58- 74.

https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/study-explores-use-of-blockchain-to-protect-indigenous-genomic-data/

M1 P1 How AI is Helping Revitalize Indigenous Languages

This article is one example of Indigenous people are using technology to help preserve their language. The Maori people are using AI and machine learning as a way to automate the transcription of thousands of hours of Maori language archives to enhance access to Maori media. They aim to bring the Maori language and other Indigenous languages to voice operated digital assistants like Siri.  An additional point of importance in the article is the call for data sovereignty for all Indigenous cultures.  The non-profit media organization Te Hiku, the organization behind the development of the app using AI and machine learning, states that “Data is the new land. Having had our land taken off us, and the experience of language loss in our family, we take data sovereignty very seriously.”

https://www.itu.int/hub/2022/08/ai-indigenous-languages-maori-te-reo/