Mobile data theft

Not only social networking sites but mobile data theft is also an area of concern. If you share your mobile details with a stranger, the stranger can very well take control of your data, even though the phone is returned to you – that’s advanced technology. This is the reason why the government has decided to put cell phone makers under scanner, including imported ones. Do not blame only Chinese sets, everybody is a suspect. Apart from data protection laws, India also needs to enact a separate Act for protection of data of Indian citizens in countries like USA. Millions of Indians use social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and search engines like Google on their phones. The servers of these service providers are based in the US. Hence, nations like China and Russia have enacted data residency laws. The data collected by these services, apart from e-marketing sites, and taxi-hailing applications are resident data outside India.The US has laws for protection of data of its citizens, but the laws offer no protection of data to non-US citizens.The Indian government uses the services of social networking sites of the USA and our ministers have Twitter and Facebook accounts, apart from ministries having e-mail ids of service providers of the US. Data is the new weapon for colonising nations. India has taken baby steps to protect the government digital data - the data cannot be taken outside India - like Aadhaar data.

— Deendayal M Lulla