Chat Up Privacy

In early January, tech billionaire Elon Musk바카라�s two-word tweet, 바카라�use Signal바카라�, sent online folks into a hyperdrive바카라�people rushed to download a messenger app that has been around for a few years, but till then was used by a small, niche set. In the debate over privacy that was touched off by WhatsApp바카라�s new policy update over sharing certain data with its parent Facebook, Musk evidently provided the nudge for those considering a shift to another messenger service.

Here바카라�s how some of the recent action in the messenger app landscape played out: Telegram was the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide in January 2021, with over 63 million installs, according to the app tracking firm Sensor Tower. India, it says, figured at the top for Telegram installs, accounting for 24 per cent of them.

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Signal featured at number three on the list of most downloaded apps. Still, WhatsApp wasn바카라�t too far behind either바카라�coming in the top five after Facebook. It바카라�s easily the leading instant messaging app in India, with a user base of 400 million as of July 2019. But, given the backlash from its proposed privacy update바카라�which would allow Facebook to access data from chats with a business account바카라�the new policy has been delayed until mid-May in a bid to placate concerns of users.

As Prasanth Sugathan, legal director at Software Freedom Law Centre India, puts it, the concerning factor in the case of WhatsApp wasn바카라�t so much about the leakage of information바카라�for sure, the messages and calls are end-to-end enc­rypted. In fact, WhatsApp uses the same cryptographic protocol developed by Signal. 바카라�But the question again comes down to why do they need to collect so much data about usage.바카라� If privacy and security were the watchwords, shouldn바카라�t data minimisation be the guiding principle, he argues.

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바카라�It바카라�s a good thing that at least we have this discussion,바카라� says Sugathan. It바카라�s relevant to other apps as well, he points out. 바카라�If you go through the number of apps installed on your smartphone and the kind of access that they have to various kinds of information, it is definitely a problem.바카라�

The broader context of these privacy discussions is that India바카라�s data protection law is still a work-in-progress. The Personal Data Protection Bill introduced in Parliament in 2019 was ref­erred to a joint committee which has been working on it through the past year바카라�the committee바카라�s report is keenly awaited and it could likely come up for discussion in the current session. Until a data protection framework is in place, says Sugathan, the scenario of a legal vacuum will linger.

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That a data protection law was long due isn바카라�t in doubt. 바카라�The fact that we do not have it gives us the opportunity now to come up with some new innovations,바카라� reckons Rahul Matthan, partner at Trilegal, a Bangalore-based law firm. That바카라�s because concepts of privacy in the digital world are still only evolving, trying to keep pace with technology. 바카라�When I started working on privacy a decade ago, we didn바카라�t have Big Data and just the ability to devise insights out of data was not even conceivable,바카라� says Matthan. 바카라�Today, we need data for just about everything and tremendous benefits come out of it. But there are trade-offs to this and that is the challenge that Big Data has brought.바카라�

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The year-old draft bill, PDP 2019, was by and large aligned with Europe바카라�s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the current global standard for privacy, says Matthan. 바카라�To my mind, it didn바카라�t do enough. In the sense that it could have done so much more.바카라� Of course, that바카라�s also keeping aside the draft bill바카라�s most contentious provisions in Section 35, whose broad exemptions for government agencies have prompted concerns of creating a surveillance state.

What바카라�s equally important today, argues Matthan, is to find alternatives to the way consent is being applied digitally바카라�not merely as an upfront approval to a long set of privacy terms that aren바카라�t just difficult to understand but which also attempt to cover every likely future scenario whether it unfolds or not. Rather, it should be geared towards a 바카라�just-in-time바카라� consent, like what바카라�s being tried out in the financial world, suggests Matthan.

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The Niti Aayog last September put out a discussion paper on a Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA)바카라�a framework for data sharing in the financial sector. This architecture forms the consent layer on the stack of digital platforms that include Aaadhar and the Unified Payments Interface. The DEPA involves Account Aggregators, which is a new class of non-banking financial companies approved by the Reserve Bank of India바카라�these account aggregators will function as consent managers by routing to the user every request for sharing financial data.

바카라�The provisions of the 2019 draft had references to the concept of consent manager which no other law in the world has,바카라� Matthan tells Outlook. 바카라�What we now have, with DEPA, is the ability to take that consent exactly when we need it only for that little piece we need it for.바카라�

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Clearly, the arguments over consent, privacy and data protection are bound to get more complicated before they get untangled. 바카라�When you have more services added, that again becomes an attractive proposition to collect more data,바카라� says Prasanth Sugathan.

But back to the WhatsApp update, which was earlier supposed to kick in by early February and has now been delayed to May. The company came out with explainers to clarify that its new policy of sharing data with its parent Facebook, didn바카라�t change anything for private messages바카라�individual or group chats with friends and family. And that it only pertained only to chats with business accounts. But even that latter part, it appears, isn바카라�t fully clear yet.

Says Prashant Tandon, founder and CEO of the online pharmacy 1mg, 바카라�We are in the healthcare business and using WhatsApp as a communication platform is helpful for consumers. But we do have concerns if they want to analyse and process the data.바카라� As Tandon exp­lains it, the firm바카라�s transactions are mostly through the 1mg app, but order updates currently go through SMS and email, depending on the customer바카라�s preference. Given the sheer number of people using WhatsApp in India, it바카라�s only logical to offer customers that messaging option as well. Since information on health is sacrosanct, Tandon says it is important to get full assurances on the scope of use of any data. 바카라�We were actively exploring exp­anding WhatsApp as a communication platform but are getting more concerned now, so we need to get these things sorted before we get involved,바카라� says Tandon. 바카라�Now that it is def­erred, there is more time for these discussions and conversations.바카라�

WhatsApp messenger is still far ahead of the competition in India even if rivals like Signal and Telegram have got a huge bump-up in downloads this past month. Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights adv­ocate and founder of tech portal Medianama, says he has been on Signal for many years but barely had occasion to use it until rec­ently when some of his group chats shifted to the platform. 바카라�I think companies need to realise that the number of users who care about privacy is increasing,바카라� he says. Just the same, we could well be looking at a scenario of users toggling between multiple messaging apps, he reckons.

Looking back about a decade or so, Pahwa notes that there were a gaggle of messenger apps all keen to tap the emerging shift away from SMS at the time.  바카라�What gave WhatsApp an edge over other platforms at that time were two aspects바카라�it kept the product extremely simple and reliable.바카라� Reliability, he says, is still its core feature and the end-to-end encryption feature came in after its acquisition by Facebook in 2014.

바카라�Even with these changes to the privacy policy, your messaging information is still private,바카라� says Pahwa. The recent privacy policy about chats with a business account, too, don바카라�t sound very different, on paper, from what other advertisement-targeting models do바카라�case in point being emails mined for keywords, he reckons. And, as for WhatsApp sharing certain data with Facebook, that too started back in 2016. 바카라�But what has caused a worry and led to an impact on people is the fact that it served as a reminder that WhatsApp is sharing data with Facebook,바카라� says Pahwa. 바카라�So, this reaction, to my mind, has been more a function of the company바카라�s ownership. And let바카라�s face it, Facebook is a company which from a privacy perspective not many trust.바카라�

Indeed, WhatsApp바카라�s recent explainers dwelt on these points바카라�that it doesn바카라�t keep logs of whom all its users are calling or messaging, that it can바카라�t see the locations people share with others and that it doesn바카라�t share contacts with Facebook. But clarity also needs to be upfront and not via blog posts, says Prasanth Sugathan. 바카라�It바카라�s very difficult for any user to go through all this fine print,바카라� he tells Outlook. 바카라�I mean, I don바카라�t have to go though paragraphs and paragraphs to find out what my data is going to be used for.바카라�

By Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore