Facebook breach: Indians weigh in on data protection

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has prompted calls for India to adopt more robust data protection laws for its citizens.

Leading community social media platform, LocalCircles, conducted a survey to check citizen perception on data privacy in India.

According to the study that received more than 19,000 votes, even the definition of what is private information is hazy in the Indian law.

Globally, privacy laws deal with the regulations, storage and use of personal information of individuals.

In the first poll, 89 percent citizens voted in favour of India having a law that prevents any individual, public or private organisation from accessing and sharing certain predefined data attributes, without a written authorisation from them.

Only nine percent voted against it.

The government had appointed the BN Srikrishna Committee for framing data protection rules.

It is expected that data security and privacy is likely to be an important aspect of the upcoming National Telecom Policy 2018.

Citizens on LocalCircles also weighed in to identify what should be considered as private information and identified 18 information parameters.

These parameters include the iris/retina scan, fingerprint scan, DNA, PAN card information, Aadhaar details, Passport details, Date of birth (DOB), bank account details, credit ratings, salary/compensation, performance at work, Voter ID card details, medical records, mobile phone details, residential address, family details, Debit/Credit card details, and Income Tax paid details.

59 percent people said that all these 18 attributes should be covered under the privacy law.

10 percent said that only the iris/retina scan, fingerprints and DNA should be considered private information.

Meanwhile, 14 percent said it should include these three plus the Aadhaar, PAN, Passport, Voter ID and DoB details.

Further, 17 percent said it should include the above eight parameters and bank details, debit/credit card details, income tax details and medical records.

250 million Indians are a part of the social media giant, Facebook.

Earlier last week, Minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad sent out a word of warning to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, over the allegations of the data breach.

"Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, you better know the observation of IT Minister of India. If any data theft of Indians is done with the collusion of Facebook systems, it will not be tolerated. We have got stringent powers in the IT Act including summoning you in India," Prasad had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)