Data Anonymity

Context: The recommendation of the Kris Gopalakrishnan committee on Non-Personal Data (NPD) usage needs a relook since it is marred with various issues.  

Suggestions of the Committee regarding NPD usage

• Setting up a regulator: With the powers to request data, supervise data-sharing requests, and settle disputes.

• NPD regime should favour Indian companies: This is consistent with India’s refusal to sign a G- 20 treaty allowing cross-border data access and data-sharing between nations.

• NPD categorization: into three classes:
• The first is public data collected by the government like census data, health ministry records, and municipal records.
• The second is community NPD, For E.g. electricity consumption in a locality or eating habits in a neighborhood, would also include telecom services data.
• The third category is anonymized sensitive personal NPD such as may be collected by a hospital.
• Data Anonymization: In all cases, data will be anonymized with personal identifiers removed.
• Obligation of the companies:
• Companies collecting NPD should register with the government and make data mandatorily available after anonymization.
• Also disclose how the data is collected and store it devoid of personal details.
• Creating economic opportunities: $ 500 billion opportunities in the next five years is predicted by selling of the anonymized data to the private entities.

Issues with committee’s suggestions:

• NPD can be easily de-anonymized:

• For E.g. data collected form food delivery businesses, relating to eating habits of an area can be de-anonymized if tied to electoral rolls and telecom records.
• The government already has vast amount of personal data which can be easily linked to the anonymized data.

• Commercial issues

• Severely impacts business model: If the data collected by the government is made to sell to the rival businesses, it will create caution among the investors thus impacting investments.
• Intellectual Property Eroded: Mandatory revelation of the method of data collection and anonymization impacts innovation

• No precedence available: Such a system of mandatory data collection and nationalized data warehousing doesn’t exist anywhere