Fodder Points for Mains:
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India lacks such an institutional mechanism. An explicit law on privacy would be the place to create one.
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The law is required not only in relation to the state but also vis-à-vis commercial entities, which collect tonnes of personal data.
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Absence of a law that calls for protection of the data they collect and for its benign use is not so much a void as a pit full of unknown menace.
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India needs a privacy law not just to hold harm at bay but also to benefit from the world’s personal data, to corner a chunk of the huge, emerging data processing business.
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Personal data from other countries will not flow to India to be processed here, if India does not have a specific law on data protection and if the law is not in line with similar laws in the countries from where the data comes.
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Artificial intelligence depends on self-learning algorithms applied to reams of data.
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If India is to be a vibrant member of the world of knowledge, it must have the capacity to handle zetta bytes of data and laws to protect them.
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Time we focused on this, moving on from an existential debate on the right to privacy.
