#SaveOurPrivacy | Big Brother Is Watching You: Surveillance Reform In India
Vrinda Bhandari explains why we need to understand the regulatory regime, given the pervasiveness of surveillance in our society.
The #SaveOurPrivacy campaign has worked with BloombergQuint to produce these videos explaining the importance of appropriate legislation that protects the privacy, including data privacy of Indian citizens.
As digital data enters all aspects of our commercial and personal lives, debate on surveillance rages.
With the rise of big data analytics, companies already have information about consumers—something that has been dubbed surveillance capitalism. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is one such example. But it’s not only companies. Governments are also seen storing and monitoring data for security purposes or otherwise.
Data surveillance is slowly moving from targeted to mass surveillance.
This leads to the main question around data protection and surveillance, says Vrinda Bhandari, advocate and drafting volunteer at Save Our Privacy. “Given the pervasiveness of surveillance, we need to understand what the regulatory regime surrounding it is.”
When people talk of data surveillance, they tend to think it’s ok to give information as they haven’t done anything wrong, according to Bhandari. She calls it a misunderstanding of the very idea of surveillance and privacy itself, explaining that why there’s a need for a comprehensive data protection law which covers surveillance by both the state and private players.