Sunday 25 March 2018

#DataPrivacy #Aadhar #GDPR

Trade Off : Privacy vs LiveEasy ?

Of late , all over the World , media ( online and offline ) , is full of articles / opinions , with regard to the question of protecting the private / personal data of citizens

These are :

· What data are private and what are public

· Who has the right to collect / compile such data

· In what ways such compiled data can be used

· Does data-collector have a right to sell such data to others for commercial purpose

· What permissions must be obtained from the citizens before compiling such data

· Do such permissions constitute a legal contract between the user and the compiler

· Does the State have an obligation to protect the data willingly given by users to compilers

· What kind of Data Protection Law is possible to enable such State Protection

· How will a breach of such law get detected

· Has the State got required resources to monitor data-use by compilers , to detect misuse

· If a Citizen-User has granted permission ( for such “ misuse “ ), can State declare it “ illegal “

This is only a partial list

For context , consider the following :

In India, suicide is considered “ illegal “ . You can be sued for “ attempting to commit suicide “

But suicide survivors are never prosecuted !

And ,of course , non-survivors are beyond the reach of the law !

Can State find – and prosecute – persons who display “ clear tendency for suicide “ ?

{ I believe Google / Facebook have technologies to discover such disturbing trend in a user , from his postings / likes / comments / searches ! }

Only other day, one expert said on a TV channel :

When a person downloads Facebook Messenger and accepts its Terms and Conditions, it enables the mike on the Smart Phone to pick up each and every “ spoken word “ ( even when the phone is switched off ! ) , and relay to the Facebook server !

Isn’t that “ inviting an intruder “ in your house ?

The rate at which IoT ( Internet of Things ) is proliferating , within 3 /5 years , there will be 50 IoT connected devices PER PERSON , in entire world !

Remember , nearly a BILLION Indians already have “ Internet Connected Mobiles “ !

That means , each one of us will be 24 hours in close proximity of some or other “ thing “ which can eavesdrop on our every word and relay it to thousands of Computer Servers , spread all over the World !

Let me restate ( what I have repeatedly said in the past )

Within one year , no one will ever know the following about any CONTENT ( read , Private Data ) :

· Nature of Content

· WHO created

· WHEN created

· WHERE created

· HOW created

· HOW transmitted / circulated

· HOW transformed ( “Speech to Text “ is so yesterday transformation )

· To WHOM sold

· HOW used

· WHEN compiled