Mauritian dignity and data

I have been in Mauritius for the past year and I have been making my way around understanding things from a westerner, a tourist and a Mauritian point of view. I am a cyber security practitioner and have worked and been a trustee of a children’s charity and currently provide pro bono support to another.

Children are incredible, they have a capacity to learn, forgive, love, laugh and enjoy in a pure way which adults unfortunately grow out of. As we enter the age of taking back our rights of data privacy it is important to remember that as adults we have responsibility over our own data. A child for example will have their photo across the world within seconds and have no say in the matter. If the parent provided consent then fine, but that image and those image rights belong to the child and are managed on behalf of the child by the parent. This is your data and it is your asset. Anyone looking after it should be responsible.

Today I saw something which did not sit well. A company had used the image of a tourist with two poor children smiling to promote their business as an authentic tour company around Mauritius. Coming from a charity background I always pondered the problem of using images to promote the charity and the orphanage we built so we could raise funds, this did not sit easy, images are a way to tell a story.

Here is the wikipedia definition of poverty porn.

“Poverty porn, also known as development porn, famine porn, or stereotype porn, has been defined as “any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause”. It’s also a term of criticism applied to films which objectify people in poverty for the sake of entertaining a privileged audience”

This is an evolution of the human zoo concept, Mauritians are a welcoming people and our hospitality is legendary and famous, but we are not here to be exploited, we are not noble savages, we are human beings and should be treated as such.

This was the advert which upset me:

I contacted the company to ask questions over the pictures and the authorisation to use it and whether they felt they were being exploitative. After a short Q&A I was blocked.

I have more examples of this practice, and I will engage in dialogue where I can.

My hope is that people will realise the power they have over their own data and companies consider people’s dignity and should not exploit those less fortunate.

The other fear is that Mauritius and other countries are facing a newer colonialism.