DATA SECURITY in India.

I don't know whether or not you have come across the term "DATA-SECURITY", but I bet you either you know or not, you generally think that "what is in my data that other companies may use?". In the same time, European countries got very strict rule for the 'personal data capturing' and use of it by other companies.

You may heard of the case of Facebook LLC. Facebook got accused for sharing personal data of individuals to a third party that use and manipulate data for the use of election purpose. Same thing happens here in India a while back, when Vice President of a reputed money transfer app get caught red handed on a Sting Operation done by an Independent media group called CobraPost. The app was accused for sharing the data of its users to benefit a particular political party in India.

Many people in India, gives positive response for that Sting Operation, and requested the app to delete their account. But majority of them (including me) left unattended by the app's customer care as our account is still available on their database and not get deleted by them.

Data of Millions of Aadhar card holders got leaked and used by many third parties for their personal use a while back the above scenario. This definitely tell us that, data Security and user data privacy is on the verge of its misuse in India.

What it means for the people of India? Shouldn't we concern about it? Why your data is important to you and why it's important that you and only you should be responsible for your data sharing.

I have divided this whole blog into some cases (real-life) that I have encountered while talking to people (here in India) about what they think of these things and their data being shared and accessed without their permission?

Well, the set of people that I have encountered ranged from (according to their education including Students, Job holders, Job-Seekers and business person) uneducated, graduate, post graduates and even Ph.D holders too. Hope this synopsis will give you a slight indication of what majority of Indians think about this topic.

Definition.

[FROM WIKIPEDIA] 'Data security' means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach.

Ok, their is too much of technical terms are used in this definition. I will try to simplify this definition.

'Data Security' broadly mean to secure/protect users data from other users. Your data should be yours and no other person, (without your permission) should be able to access that data.

Every platform has its own way to secure the user data (either online or offline) and many techniques are used to secure user data on both communication ends.

How companies get your data?

Ok, so this one the most asked question to me from a laymen who doesn't know how internet world works and that's fine.
Whenever you use any application/form/communication method/ or any type of service that require you to enter your credentials, you give your data to them. For Ex. suppose you want to open a savings account in a bank, then they will give you a form where you will have to fill your information so that later, they will authenticate that you're the genuine account holder. Once you submit your form with all the details to the bank, the details will stored in bank system for the life time.

There are always some terms and conditions associated with the form and how the bank will use your data.

Now, that's being said, let's move on the cases that I have talked about before.

CASE 1 (Uneducated People)

Internet charges are being drastically reduced in recent years in india and cost of smartphones too. So it's safe to say that majority of people here use smartphones (or feature phones with the access of 4G internet).
So, when I asked to the peoples that what they understand by the term "Data Security" or "Data" (Bhaiya, Data ya Data security kya hoti hai samjhte ho aap), as expected the answer given by them is a smiling face.
I asked, did they use any type of social networking or instant messaging application (like Facebook/WhatsApp), majority of them replied 'yes'. I'm sure and got verified later that they never saw or listen privacy policy term/tab in these apps or know of it.

This conclude that these people don't know or concerned about data privacy or security.

CASE 2 (School students/College students and Graduates)

I have some hopes with this particular group that they must know the need of Data Security, but soon my hope dies.
Majority of School students even doesn't know what is data security. Graduates, (smart enough) are able to replicate the definition of Data Security but, they don't think Data security or privacy is much of a concern.

I asked a B.Tech (CSE) student that what he thinks about the privacy policies given by major companies. He answered me with a "I don't care" gesture and stated that he doesn't care about what is written there. If he has to use the app, he will agree with privacy policy without concerning what's written there.
I asked him, do he use Paytm, he says Yes. I said that do you know you can't delete your account once created in Paytm, he said fine, why would I delete my Paytm account anyway. The answers that I found from this portion of people make me think, what has happened to the education system altogether.
I am assured that there are many college going students who know and parise data privacy and security, but majority of them is like this.

Why it is important that you should given access to delete your all personal records from the databases of the third party services at your convenience?

The thing is, as we read previously, we don't read privacy policies of the services that we intend to use and miss out on these sensitive details later. Blindly clicking "I Agree to the term and conditions" make your data vulnerable sometimes.

I think that user should be given to delete his/her personal information according to his/her convinecent from service databases, once he/she is not willing to use your service anymore. This is important because this ensure total data integrity at all levels. User have a satisfaction that even he/she is not using that service, his/her data is safe. Twitter implemented that idea and you can delete all your personal data from the settings tab or you can download it to see what's Twitter is storing.
Paytm, as It stores highly sensitive user information like Bank details, Aadhar details, and verified email and mobile numbers, it's important for them to provide an option to delete the particular account if he/she doesn't want to use it.

Conclusion.

In this article I'm not targeting any particular service. I Just think that users must be aware of what they are paying when they use someone's service for free. They should know what is the cost and how to deal with it. Your data is precious and only you can grant access to use it.

Note: This article does not target any particular company/person/service in anyway. If anyone have any problem with this article, please contact me before taking any action. I am ready to remove parts/names or even the whole article if needed.