The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India needs to be commended for proposing strong data protection rules, putting the consumer at the centre. As India becomes one of the top bandwidth consuming nations in the world it is important to put in place laws that ensures basic rights to users of data. Access to data is knowledge and knowledge is power. There are many players — both legitimate and unscrupulous — who want to lay their hands on this enormous power. The proposed data protection rules go beyond the mere prevention of illegal use of consumer data to ensuring that users are informed even when their data is being processed legitimately and the purpose for which it is being used. It empowers consumers to decide whether they want to allow their data to be used at all or whether it should be erased to leave no digital footprints. Enterprises around the world have realised the value of user data for which technologies are being developed with an aim to analyse the petabytes of information flowing through the Internet. This has led to a situation where individuals may often not even be aware that their online activities are being tracked or observed. Even harmless looking mobile applications are able to collect large quantities of data from a user’s device. This includes information, such as the user’s contact list, messages, camera, location, which may not have any direct correlation with the underlying service being offered by the app. The TRAI has done the right thing by banning such practices. As the economy increasingly moves to the digital world, it is all the more important that users are appropriately protected.

But policy makers should also be aware of the unintended consequences of strong data protection rules as companies will have to spend billions to ensure compliance of the laws. While large corporates may be in a position to foot the bill, smaller players could find it difficult to hire compliance staff and compile voluminous documentation. In many cases, business models will have to be redone and many data gathering technologies may become illegal. Future technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning depend heavily on collecting user data. Then there are government agencies that use data analytics to keep tab on people for national security purposes.

The Supreme Court has clarified that the right to privacy is not absolute and that the state can place reasonable restrictions on it in the interest of fulfilling objectives such as protecting national security, preventing and investigating crime, encouraging innovation, and preventing the dissipation of social welfare benefits. The TRAI proposals along with the white paper on data protection released by a high-level government committee headed by Justice BN Srikrishna in November 2017 should be taken up by the Centre immediately to come up with a data protection law that strikes a balance between between the individual, the companies which hold and process our data, and the State.

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