Need dedicated legal framework for mobile apps

SPECIFIC PARAMETERS OF DUE DILIGENCE FOR MOBILE APPS SERVICE PROVIDERS HAVE NOT BEEN SPECIFICALLY DEFINED UNDER THE INDIAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000

they want to achieve and what are the reasons for which they are seeking specific permissions from users.

Today’s world is a data economy world. Today, every service provider is interested in a user not as a person but, as a data entity who is constantly generating, broadcasting and transmitting data. Service providers consequently use data generated from users for various purposes like targeting them with specific messages or advertising, etc. Data has a multifold purpose not just for profiling users, but also for the purposes of bombarding users with various kinds of services, perspectives, opinions, content, text which could help them make decision to pertaining to their existing day-to-day affairs.

India as a nation needs to protect its data users and their personal and data privacy. The nation needs to revisit its existing stand on intermediary liability and make service providers liable for unauthorised access to and use of third party data. The nation needs to ensure that the data of Indians is not first sent to locations outside India and then misused. Data localisation is one approach that needs to be well examined in this regard, not only to protect Indian data users but also to protect Indian cyber sovereignty as also India’s sovereign interest in cyberspace. All eyes are on the government to provide effective remedy to people who are prejudicially affected by unauthorised data breaches.