Australian Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Over-Representation in Cultural Heritage and Land Approvals

Abstract

This essay explores the importance of the principle that indigenous people have all the rights and control over the data that is being collected about them regarding their land and their cultural heritage, and how it is being represented in the world. As the information about the land and cultural heritages of the indigenous community is collected into datasets, there must be decisions made over who has access to the data, what is collected, and what should be removed from the systems. This is also to make sure that the information about cultural heritages and sites, and the indigenous lands, is not over-represented or misrepresented just for the interests of the world outside. 

1. Importance of the problem

1.1. Control over land data is a matter of sovereignty

Control over the land data is a matter of sovereignty because the ability of the indigenous community to govern their own land data impacts their ability to govern their own lands and cultural heritage. It has always been under the rights of the indigenous community to have control over the information in their land, culture and environment. Having control over the land data is a direct representation of the indigenous community exercising its right to collect, store, use and access data on its terms.

1.2. The threat of cultural exploitation

Cultural exploitation is a real threat that happens when the land and heritage data of the indigenous population are being misused without their consent. This can come in various forms, from academic researches that extract and spreads the knowledge without proper consent from the community to commercial products that profit from the information. 

A real example of this would be the destruction of an indigenous cultural heritage site, Juukan Gorge, in 2020 (Griffith University, 2022, The Juukan Gorge destruction: A case study in stakeholder-driven and shared values approach). Here, Rio Tinto’s mining operations destroyed rock shelters that were over 46,000 years old and were a religious site to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) community. The article discusses how the reason for this accident was the misrepresentation of the site due to the lack of supervision, decision-making and consent from the indigenous community on how the data about the cultural heritage and land was being stored.

1.3. Ensuring fairness in land and heritage approvals

Ensuring fairness in land and heritage approvals requires the involvement of indigenous communities in decision-making that directly affects their land and cultural sites. There is an evident imbalance between the indigenous communities and the resource extraction industries, and this leads to situations where the economic interests are put over the community’s voices (Langton, M, 2023). 

Australia is a mining country with its economy driven by the extraction and export of land resources. This creates an urgent need to address the fairness issue, focusing on the power imbalance in the approval process.

2. Existing views and theories

2.1. Maiam Nayri Wingara Principles

The Maiam Nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective held a summit in 2018, where a set of principles and protocols were established to ensure progress in Data Sovereignty within the Indigenous community (Maiam nayri Wingara, 2018). 

Maiam Nayri Wingara’s principles emphasise that all the data about the indigenous people must be governed by the indigenous community, recognising that the way the community is being represented is under their control, and all the data that is being collected, stored, and accessed is with their approval and that it aligns with the community’s interests, benefiting them directly.

2.2. CARE Principles in Australia

The Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA) established a set of CARE principles to ensure that the data collected regarding the indigenous population benefits them, respects their culture and maintains data sovereignty (Australian Research Data Commons, 2025). 

Care principles focus mainly on

1. Collective Benefit – This means that all the data that is being collected regarding the cultural heritage sites and land must benefit the indigenous people and help them protect their culture.
2. Authority to control – The community must have control over how the data is being collected, stored and accessed.
3. Responsibility – The people who work with the indigenous data must bear the responsibility of ensuring their usage is approved and that it benefits the community.
4. Ethics – The rights of the indigenous people must be the primary concern at all stages of how the data is used.

So far, the Australian implementation of CARE principles on indigenous data has shown successful results in health research, where the data that is effectively controlled by the community has contributed to higher-quality research while benefiting the community overall (Using Indigenous Standards to Implement the CARE Principles: Setting Expectations through Tribal Research Codes, 2022). 

3. Role of AI in solving the problem

3.1. AI development with indigenous collaboration

In Australia’s Kakadu National Park, the indigenous owners have successfully integrated AI technologies over indigenous land data knowledge to monitor specific lands that are culturally significant to the community (Northern Territory Government, 2022). 

In the ‘Collecting the West’ Project, AI systems were used to reconstruct cultural heritages widespread over an area, while abiding by the intellectual property rights of the indigenous people (University of Western Australia, 2025).

These projects show us how, with the right partnerships and implementations, AI can be. used to support the indigenous decision-making process instead of replacing it completely. It also goes to show how these approaches prioritise the community, and by doing so, they ensure that the AI development aligns with the community’s priorities rather than external priorities

3.2. Indigenous-controlled data repositories

In New Zealand, the Genomics Aotearoa data repository is maintained using indigenous governance principles (Genomics Aotearoa, 2023). Here, the biological data that is being collected from the land of the Maori communities is being maintained by the community, ensuring land data sovereignty for the community in the territory. Indigenous-controlled data repositories can help researchers while also acknowledging the community’s authority over how the data repository is being used.

3.3. Transparency in data usage and AI frameworks

Transparent AI systems are going to be crucial in maintaining trust among indigenous communities by being able to explain decision-making processes, especially when those decisions directly affect their land and cultural heritage protection. 

Australia’s CSIRO Data61 has developed an AI system that incorporates all the indigenous values and community culture (ACM Digital Library, 2023). This system is meant to adapt the governance structure to the community’s changing ideas and priorities. By the usage of ExplainableAI, and adding transparency requirements on the technological explainability in the system, they were able to develop a system that was trustworthy with clear communication on data sources, limitations and community benefits (SSRN, 2020). 

4. Pros and cons

4.1. Pros

1. Assurance in data sovereignty – These methods directly provide absolute data sovereignty to the community, since all the land and cultural heritage data are being recorded, analysed, controlled and stored by the indigenous communities that have the authority. Implementations discussed in previous sections have shown great results across Australia, allowing a more culturally appropriate way to deal with indigenous land data by prioritising the community (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024).

2. Improved representation in approvals – When the principles are set in a way that the indigenous communities have complete control over the data, the approval processes will prioritise the interests of the community over others. This can help us prevent the destruction of cultural sites like the Juukan Gorge incident by putting the indigenous communities at the centre of decision-making (Griffith University, 2024).

3. Working on the historical injustice – By establishing indigenous control over land data, we can create a framework that works towards reversing the injustices caused by colonial research practices and data collection (Tahu Kukutai, 2023).

4.2. Cons

1. Risk of underrepresentation of the community – These frameworks can have intensive and sophisticated technical requirements, which can overwhelm a few indigenous communities that are marginalised. This can lead to problems where certain indigenous communities become well-resourced with data sovereignty and others fall behind.

2. Potential burden on the community – As mentioned before, these implementations can get resource-intensive, which might put a burden on the communities to be completely responsible for all their data collection, storage, and usage (Genetics in Medicine, 2019). This can seem like responsibilities taken away from the hands of the government and institutions that created the historical injustices, and forced upon the community.

3. Risk of Exploitation after approval – Even if the approvals were controlled by the community, this doesn’t ensure the risk of exploitation in the long term after the approval, especially to meet with economic demands, trying to override cultural concerns.

5. Conclusion

Indigenous data sovereignty in land and cultural heritages is a crucial step in acknowledging the basic rights of the Aboriginals to have complete control over how the data related to their territories is being used. The successful AI ethics and data collection frameworks used in Maiam Nayri Wingara and CARE principles already demonstrate how these methods can improve research quality while aligning with indigenous cultural expectations. Despite a few cons to this, with the right solutions, overrepresentations of cultural heritages and land data approvals can be solved, prioritising the communities while benefiting everyone else in the process.

References

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