Privacy concerns around AI are valid but DPDP Act offers safeguard, says Nandan Nilekani

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani at the AIMA event in New Delhi on February 21

With artificial intelligence models relying on vast amount of data in order to be effective, Infosys co-founder and chairman Nandan Nilekani on February 21 said that the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act provides a strong framework to govern the usage of such models.

"People will be rightfully concerned if their data is being used and so on. Fortunately, we have a very good DPDP Act. That, I think, will also govern AI usage," Nilekani said during a conversation with Nalin Mehta, Managing Editor, Moneycontrol, at an AIMA session in New Delhi.

Nilekani argued that the key to balancing AI innovation and privacy lay in ‘anonymisation’.

“Privacy is about personally identifiable information. As long as data is anonymised so that you cannot trace it back to a person, then you can process large amounts of data without affecting any human being,” Nilekani said.

Nilekani's comments at a time when the Centre is holding consultations on the rules of DPDP Act. Once the rules are tabled before the Parliament, the DPDP Act will be implemented to give India's its first dedicated legislation for safeguarding personal data.