It also raises questions about data privacy and whether careless and callous automation contracts of the government are exposing us to risk. In the next hour, his mailbox had offers from Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, South Indian Bank, Deutsche Bank, Kotak Bank—some of them sent multiple emails through different officials, who were perhaps buying the database independent of one another. I am more concerned with the manner in which our privacy is being compromised with direct leaks from compromised government databases. Personal Data Protection legislation has been going through many iterations and the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 has been introduced in Parliament, but data privacy still feels like a distant dream. As things stand, the only time that every government department zealously protects personal information is in connection with queries under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Source: Indian Express July 26, 2023 04:39 UTC