In the wake of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, union minister for information & broadcasting Ravi Shankar Prasad has reiterated that the government will not tolerate any unauthorised used of data to influence elections.
Speaking at the ¡°Bengaluru IT Global Hub Road Ahead¡± event, Prasad indicated the Indian government will be tough on any digital service abusing user data. ¡°The Narendra Modi government is very clear,¡± he said.
He stressed on the five key points of user data being availability, utility, innovation, anonymity and privacy. ¡°In a particular area if people are getting infected, because of data we can have a good policy for that. But it should be an anonymous data. If innovation is to be done, data availability is important,¡± he said
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Reuters
¡°Let there be privacy in terms of your health condition, your official preferences, relationships which are matrimonial in nature and family matters. But the issue of privacy is overblown by those who talk of Right to Information and also talk of privacy.¡±
Prasad has also previously said the government has issued show cause notices to both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook regarding the recent data breach. Once their responses have been received will the authorities decide on any further action. India has demanded information from Facebook, on whether the personal data of Indian voters has been manipulated by third party developers in any way, and gas given the social network an April 7 deadline to respond.
In addition, Prasad says that a committee headed by retired judge Sri Krishna has been asked to compile a report on data protection, which could be turned into law soon.