MeitY worried about the Big Tech 'making people vulnerable', flags spike in data usage

Big Tech draws fire in government's presentation

The government is worried about the impact of Big Tech and the increase in data usage in "making people vulnerable" by revealing "patterns, trends and associations", an internal presentation of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has said.

The government also indicated that when it comes to Big Tech and the related increase in data usage, it is also concerned about citizens' growing digital footprint and the spike in the need for computational power.

The presentation, on the larger theme of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, was made to stakeholders in June after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was sworn in for a third successive term earlier in the month. Moneycontrol has reviewed a copy of the presentation.

The government over the past couple of years has pulled up Big Tech for non-compliance with IT rules, blocking orders and more. It plans to bring in several regulations such as the draft digital competition bill, which will have a bearing on Big Tech.

Google, Uber, Alibaba, Airbnb, Facebook and Amazon were among the tech giants identified in the presentation. This particular deck, on big data and data privacy came as a measure to set the context on why there is a need for the DPDP Act.

Apart from concerns over increased data use, the slide also talked about data privacy concerns arising from Big Data, including "sharing on social media, data gathered through social connections, interests and behaviours".

It also mentioned how when shopping online data is gathered through customers' purchases, browsing habits and preferences.

The IT ministry also talked about data being collected through software, services, cloud computing platforms and app interactions.

Moneycontrol has reached out to the ministry and the companies named by the government in the presentation for comments and the article will be updated when their responses come in.

The government is set to introduce a host of rules and regulations that will affect Big Tech. The IT ministry is set to release the DPDP Rules for public consultation.

If the DPDP Act, passed in August 2023, in its current form provides a framework for the legislation, the rules process will shape its contours.

As reported by Moneycontrol, draft DPDP rules could be released within 100 days of the formation of the government.

Moneycontrol was the first to report the government may exempt educational institutions, health establishments, and certain government entities from the restrictions on the processing of children's data mandated under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act.

The rules may also mandate that any platform processing the personal data of users, whether private or government, must immediately notify the Data Protection Board (DPB) of any data breach upon on coming to know of it.

Another proposed legislation that can have an impact on Big Tech is the Digital Competition Bill. The draft bill was released in February, with the broad idea of curbing anti-competitive practices by Big Tech companies. Apart from that, the government may also bring in a separate regulation to regulate artificial intelligence.