New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai questioned mobile applications seeking permission to access data that are not required for their functioning and asked private firms to ensure that they do not misuse the data of customers.
“There is an application which is actually a lighting application, a torch application. When you download the application, it asks for your contacts, camera and all of your peripherals. Why? For making your mobile phone a torch, why should it require access (to) all this?” Trai Chairman, R S Sharma, said at the India Mobile Congress here while expressing concern over data misuse by online players.
He said people accept terms and conditions of online platforms without reading, which puts their privacy at risk.
“If you have read agreements that many tech companies ask you to sign terms and conditions before you subscribe to their service… if you carefully read them, they are essentially saying that they will be able to do pretty much everything that they like to do with your data. Essentially, you have given away your privacy by subscribing to those platforms, unfortunately,” Sharma said.
Sharma, who played a key role in setting up of Aadhaar, said that the government’s unique ID project had privacy protection built in by design since its inception and the same was acknowledged by the Supreme Court in its recent judgement.
“Aadhaar is number. By looking at Aadhaar, you can’t determine gender, age. In public things you must ensure security, huge amount of encryption and privacy of data by design. In private, you must also protect individuals and customers from unnecessary and misuse of data,” Sharma said.
At the session, Telecommunication and Postal Services CEO at Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), Johannes Gungl, said he too has downloaded a lot of applications because services are extremely beneficial.
“This is already time of monetisation. The services are always for free but there are no free lunches. We are the product. We get benefit and we give away data. This is reason we had to introduce privacy law in new form,” Gungl said, referring to European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
He said that European companies and all firms that are operating within EU are taking GDPR very seriously. “What GDPR is trying to achieve is give back control of data to people,” Gungl said.
| 650 mn users by 2022 |
| Smartphone users in the country are expected to reach 650 million and average data usage touch 18 GB per day by 2022, consulting firm EY has said.
On friday, EY said advent of 5G is expected to support newer applications, imbibe innovative business models and usher in cross-industry collaboration. “By 2022, India is likely to transition to a Gigabit society where citizens and businesses will equally benefit from widespread fast-broadband, reliable performance delivered by robust future-proof fixed and mobile technologies,” it said in a statement. By 2022, smartphone users are expected to more than double to 650 million, elevating average data usage by over five times to 18 GB per month, according to EY. As per the statement, Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to deliver major social and environmental benefits in sectors like agriculture, automotive and transportation, healthcare, power and utilities. “India can lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The real opportunity is to look beyond technology, and find ways to give the greatest number of people the ability to positively impact their families, organisations and communities. At the back of this, India has the potential to unlock a trillion dollar digital economy by 2022 and add up to 10 million jobs,” Emerging Markets TMT Leader at EY, Prashant Singhal, said. By 2022, India’s digital economy is expected to grow to $1 trillion and lead to creation of 10 million jobs, the report added. |