Privacy debate between govt, Facebook continues; no winner yet

'Data is not the new oil. But, it is like water -- intangible and free flowing'. This is the latest comment from Nick Clegg, Facebook’s Vice President, Global Affairs and Communications, who had come down to India recently.

In his interaction with the media, Clegg said that “data is not oil." It is not a finite commodity to be owned and traded. If anything, he said, it could be likened to water, which is free flowing and borderless.

"The value of data comes not from hoarding it or trading it like a finite commodity, but from allowing it to flow freely and encouraging the innovation that comes from that free flow of data,” Clegg told media houses.

In light of not so fruitful discussions with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), his comment’s implication is more than obvious.

This is what Clegg’s recent statement implies: Either let us use whatever data we want or the country could be facing consequence of us leaving. Of course, we will give you whatever little information we could from WhatsApp, with end-to-end decryption. But, expect no more from us.

This is pretty much what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had said in his blog post on March 7, speaking about the technology giant’s way forward, privacy and data storage, among others.

Zuckerberg had said: “People want to know their data is stored securely in places they trust. Looking at the future of the internet and privacy, I believe one of the most important decisions we will make is where we will build data centers and store people's sensitive data.”

He was saying that his company will not build local data centres just because the government says so. If the trade-off is moving away from that country, then so be it.

Quite a statement indeed and hardly surprising. Introduction of the Data Protection and Privacy Bill is expected anytime now and the ministry is conducting last round of consultations before it is tabled in Parliament.

Facebook, other social media companies and some technology firms have been against the Data Privacy Bill.

Clegg had said that data protection will harm business. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty during her visit to India early this year had said that there is need for differentiation between business data and personal data. Other US-based tech firms have similar sentiments.

In short, making a lot of noise before the draft data protection bill is introduced.

Is it making an impact? Difficult to say.

According to some reports, the bill is likely to be a watered down version of its draft.

The draft bill states that all companies should ensure at least one copy of personal data is stored in India. In addition, the critical personal data can only be processed in the server located in India. Failing to comply will result in penalties in the range of 2-4 percent of companies’ global turnover or fines between Rs 5 crore and Rs 15 crore, whichever is higher.

Going by some recent reports, the government will only ask tech companies to store the copy of critical data in India. This is likely to help tech businesses like IBM.

What about social media? Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and his ministry does not seem to relent though, especially when it comes to monitoring WhatsApp. The government wants WhatsApp data to be completely traceable whereas its parent Facebook is fighting against it.

In my opinion, it has to be a mix of the two -- consumer privacy and national interest. By ensuring complete transparency it makes it easy for government to trace its citizens’ conversations. So, social media firms should not compromise user privacy that end-to-end encryption guarantees. However, without accountability from the government, companies like Facebook should not take Indian’s right to privacy for granted.

We don’t know so far which way the wind will blow. But, whichever way it blows, I hope it is us, the consumers, who win.