One-on-One 4.0 | Improved Data Privacy in the New Normal
PDPB to unlock digitalisation’s potential in India Urban Update and All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG), in collaboration with United Cities and Local Governments Asia Pacific (UCLG ASPAC), organized the fourth edition of the ‘One-on-One” series on the topic “Improved Data Privacy in the New Normal” on Thursday, October 29, 2020. Abhishek Pandey, Editor, Urban Update, interviewed Vijayshankar Nagaraja Rao, Executive Chairman, Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India (FDDPI), and talked about the various threats to data security in the new normal. Introducing the topic, Abhishek said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, official activities and day-to-day meetings have gone online resulting in a lot of data sharing digitally. The question of data safety has taken center stageand governments around the globe are handling the issue in their own ways What are the changes in our day-to-day activities since the pandemic hit the globe in March this year? And, why should we be worried about data safety at all?
Advantages of virtual media like saving expenditure and time have always been recognized but not utilised. This pandemic only forced us to seek shelter in virtual media for everything and this is now called the new normal. I believe that this platform is nothing new, instead, it was always available but only now we have realised its full potential, which is a welcome change. At the same time, this has brought issues of information and data security to the forefront because opportunities for criminals to exploit the situation have increased. Cyber-crimes in the pandemic have increased due to two reasons- increase in people using the platform and people not well versed with digital usage have suddenly entered the digital world which makes them vulnerable. It becomes very essential to prepare people to counter these challenges. When we talk about data nowadays, we refer to it as
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new oil and everyone wants to control it. The issue of data security has become important globally in terms of the relation between different countries. How governments are ensuring that data of their citizens issafe in cases of international interactions online?
One of the two aspects is data security, which implies confidentiality and that the data should not be modified. Data is like money, that is, it has value as long as it is used. So, the second aspect becomes finding appropriate channels for the usage of data rather than preventing data usage. Data can be of two types as well- personal and non-personal. More than 100 countries today have Acts for the protection of personal data. Although, India already has the Information Technology Act, it is currently working on a legislation specific to personal data protection, which includes bank details, addresses, identification numbers, etc. Personal data needs to be accorded certain additional security in comparison to non-personal data. Nonpersonal data has commercial value and therefore India is planning to draft
alegislation on how to unlock the value of non-personal data. Using data for data profiling, market segmentation, psychographic profiling of the target audience to regulate the information flow is inherent in any business and is less harmful to the users. What is worrying and can be termed unethical is the manipulation of users through the use of data that they are asked to submit at social media platforms. Controlling fake news and IDs by the platforms and government can reduce potential harm. A famous saying goes, ‘When you are not paying for a product, you are the product.’ Users on free social media platforms thus become a product as their data is captured and their profiling is carried out. How exactly is it done? How secure, reliable or accountable is this kind of profiling?
All these data profiling and analysis is done by Artificial Intelligence (AI). But actions like blocking profiles, deleting or flagging any inappropriate content is done by AI only under human supervision.
