India views its privacy seriously: IT Minister

Ravi Shankar Prasad says the country will not accept data imperialism

NEW DELHI: Amid the furore over Pegasus hacking incident, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday sent out a strong message saying that India takes privacy seriously.

“In India, we view privacy seriously and informational privacy is also integral to that. It means a person must have control over his data and its commercial usage,” the minister said while addressing the Commonwealth Law Ministers' conference in Colombo (Sri Lanka).

“We are living in the age of information technology and data is going to play a very crucial role in the digital economy discourse,” he said adding that the entire evolution of data law in India, the recommendations of Justice Shri Krishna Committee, the public consultations and now the initiative for taking a Bill into the Parliament is being considered.

The comments assume significance in the backdrop of recent disclosures by messaging giant Whatsapp that said that Indian journalists and human rights activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli spyware Pegasus.

Whatsapp had said that it is suing NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm, that is reportedly behind the technology that helped unnamed entities' hack into phones of roughly 1,400 users spanning four continents and included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.

Speaking at the conference,

Prasad noted that data economy, both in terms of commercial use

and employment, will play a crucial role.

While India acknowledges this fact, it is equally important that a large amount of data is being generated in developing and under developed countries but the claim for processing is being emphasised only by big countries.

The minister cautioned that any attempt to create monopoly on data by few companies and nations or data imperialism will not be acceptable. Data sovereignty of countries, big or small, must be respected, Prasad said.

Prasad also emphasised that any data protection law must be technology agnostic, based upon element of free consent, no abuse of consent beyond the permissible limits, requisite data protection authorities and a fair mechanism for data processing.

Equally, there is a need to balance innovation, enterprise in data but with due regard to privacy, he said.

Last week, after Whatsapp's disclosure that the spyware had targeted Indian users as well, the Indian government had asked Whatsapp to explain the matter and list out the measures that were taken by the app to protect the privacy of millions of users.

Whatsapp sources had said that platform had informed New Delhi in September that 121 Indian users had been targeted with the Israeli spyware Pegasus, after sending an alert in May. The IT Ministry officials, however, maintained that the past information had been inadequate and incomplete.

Whatsapp has over 1.5 billion users globally, of which India alone accounts for about 400 million.