Need To Keep Big Voter Data Safe

Context: Rising digital footprint and wider scope of new technologies like big data possess new electoral concerns and calls for adequate legislative and policy reforms.

Data privacy and electoral concerns

• Data misuse/theft: Regard to data of members of a political party or data from social media intermediaries to influence electoral outcomes.
  • Cambridge Analytica incident in 2016 demonstrated the ability of big data to influence voter preferences.
• Policy gap in the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019:
  • Data privacy is being assessed only from the perspective of balancing the right to privacy with the growth of the digital economy in India.
  • The link between big data, national security, democracy and free and fair elections are largely overlooked.
• Limited role of India’s election management bodies (EMBs): Limited to capture the use of data from the perspective of hidden costing or election financing concerns and fake or biased news or campaigns.
  • This surveillance is triggered with the imposition of the model code of conduct (MCC), and thus it cannot take into account the malpractices happening during the off-election period.

Way forward

• Learnings from policy response by British and EU: Data protection legislation should include provisions for electoral processes and aspects of political party functioning.
• Expand EMBs’ compliance powers: Expand surveillance during the off-election period also.
  • With Supreme Court viewing free and fair elections as a subset of electoral democracy, emerging threats from the big data domain can be countered by EMBs without waiting for formal amendments.
• Include ‘electoral democracy’ provision in Private Data Protection Bill:
  • Address new electoral threats of big data by harmonious coordination between the Data Protection Authority of India(DPAI), EMBs and law enforcement agencies.
  • Leverage DPAI’s capabilities: Like forensic capabilities and penal powers to equip EMBs.