-Hindustan Times It threatens individual sovereignty, undermines citizen rights, and is a lost chance to meaningfully grapple with data colonisation Data is a sovereign asset,” said the Union minister of railways and commerce, Piyush Goyal, at the G20 meeting in Japan. Goyal was against using free trade agreements to justify the free flow of data. Instead, he said, government restrictions on data flows would allow India to be able to use “personal,...
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The makings of a digital kleptocracy -Reetika Khera
-The Hindu When data is monetised, as the Economic Survey advocates, it becomes toxic and harms public interest Last year, I was denied information requested under the Right to Information Act (RTI) 2005. I had sought the names of agencies empanelled by the Unique Identification Authority of India for an “image makeover” and the expenditure on it. It was denied by invoking the exemption clauses of Sections 8(d) and 8(j), respectively, i.e....
More »Privacy Breach? Transport Ministry Selling Driving License, Vehicle Registration Data To Commercial Firms -Siddhartha Mishra
-Outlook The government got Rs 65 crore by selling data of approximately 25 crore vehicle registrations and 15 crore driving licences. However, is selling this data legal? Is the data actually ‘public’? Isn't it intrusion on privacy? On July 8, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari responded to an unstarred question by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Husain Dalwai on details of data sold by the government “by providing access...
More »Creating a fair digital payments market -Padmashree Gehl Sampath
-The Hindu Local firms will be at a disadvantage if big tech companies are given plum roles Since early last year, WhatsApp has busily piloted its payment system in India. WhatsApp Pay relies on the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system to facilitate inter-bank transactions. Regulatory approval that would allow its nation-wide introduction is stuck on one point: the Indian government has asked WhatsApp to localise all data processing related to...
More »Selling government data to the private sector: It's complicated
-The Telegraph There are concerns that the proposal in the Economic Survey would end up privatizing a public good The Economic Survey has proposed that data of citizens obtained by the government be monetized for social benefits. It has claimed that data are a public commodity and, hence, people should benefit from large data sets. It has been proposed that data should be sold by the government to private entities like corporations...
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