Privacy for the next billion because it is Overdue

[Music]

hi

person of interest so person of interest

is a science fiction

crime drama cereal that i have used to

be really hooked on to

you know it has at its center something

called the machine

it’s been programmed by this reclusive

brilliant billionaire called harold

finch

the machine is like the proverbial big

brother it knows

everything about everyone the machine is

used to solve

crime problems and terror

potential terrorist attacks and stuff

like that

i would in fact recommend that you watch

it if you haven’t already

now what if i told you that what was

portrayed

in person of interest is not really

science fiction but a reality

a reality that is several orders more

intrusive than what the machine already

was

and that there is not one single machine

but millions of them

big and small spread out over the world

and that you and i are a living

breathing part of this reality now that

would become a tad worrisome

wouldn’t it see anecdotally we already

know that whatever we do online is

is tracked processed recorded

analyzed and so on right we feel a bit

scooped

when we talk about going on a vacation

to goa while catching up over a cup of

coffee with a friend and then next thing

we start seeing

ads for um flights to goa and

hotels in goa for on all our online

fields

right but how does this really happen

let’s peep into one world which is a

world of apps

now an app typically talks to the phone

via

something called permissions permissions

are like the vehicle wire which

data is extracted by the app from the

phone

and certain activities on the phone are

kicked off by the app

okay i like to think of uh permissions

like the good old sipping straw that we

use

while drinking from a glass of juice you

know

it’s the the straw through which data

comes out

and it’s also the straw through which

you can you know blow bubbles into the

juice as well right through

kick off some activity in the form now

most permissions are required by the

uh app for the for the app to function

okay

some of these permissions however are

what are

called highly dangerous permissions and

why are they dangerous because of the

kind of data that they have access to

or the kind of activities that they can

kick off on the phone

can severely compromise the individual’s

privacy

for example accessing your camera

accessing your microphone

or taking reading all your sms’s or

taking a look at your calendar

or your contacts now that is something

which would be intrusive

right now the story doesn’t end with

permissions and spookiness

okay all apps also have something called

external sdks which are actually pieces

of code

that are embedded in the app to create

some kind of functionality

okay now mind you these belong to folks

who are different from your app maker

okay think of

sdks as those yummy chocolate chips that

are there in your favorite ice cream

they blend so well yet they give a

little added flavor to the ice cream as

well right

now the only sar bit in these

sdk stories is that they also

get access to all the sensitive data

that gets extracted via permissions by

the app in which they are embedded

okay and now and each of them further

processes

it and store you know shares it further

and then that gets worried some think of

the number of apps you have on your

phone right and this is just

the world of apps and folds but if you

think about it the reality

is that anything out there that is smart

or anything that is online is hungrily

sucking up data about you

every app every site you visit

every smart device that is scattered

around your house

you know your smart tv the smart speaker

even the smart

doll that your daughter probably

interacts with

um the smart car um you know the

traffic’s with

embedded iot on the road the garbage

cans your smart electricity meter

the shops that you walk past with the

sensors embedded in it

every single payment that you make

or using a card or whether it’s online

or offline

every time you scan your fingerprint

even when you’re say for example

visiting a friend in her apartment

complex right

in fact when you think about it you to

think

really hard about where your data is

not being collected today you know in my

head

um i picture this phenomena like a giant

invisible

vacuum cleaner that surrounds me sucking

up data about me

all the time okay

now often when i talk about this people

find it tough to believe you know the

common refrain is that oh is this really

happening in

india so let’s take a look at some data

uh you know my company does an annual

study of

the state of privacy of indian mobile

apps and websites

and the results of the study actually

never failed to stun me

every single year despite me being in

the privacy profession

you know the study essentially tells me

that the few apps that i have loaded on

my phone

to make my life simple are enough to

have or have all of me stand exposed

for example 71 percent of the apps

on my phone know exactly where i am at

every given point in time and no these

are not

the you know taxi healing apps or the

food delivery apps

my bank knows my wallet knows my music

app knows

my news app knows okay

um approximately six out of the ten apps

on my phone have access to my camera

half of them can read my contacts

half of them can record audio so what is

left

and if i say that i will avoid my phone

and let’s say just use the browser and

the web interface

life is not very different over there

for example

on an average indian website there are

22 external parties those locus like

those chocolate chips

which are embedded in a regular app you

know and i’m not talking social media

and all that

okay in fact i should share with you

something that i’ve

not really shared with anybody before um

you know five years ago i was building

this picture of myself

in the year 2025 um i’m of course

several kilos

lighter i finally get that

silver nose stud that i’ve been planning

for a while

uh just that it has smart sensors built

into it that tracks my

body’s parameters and sends them to my

dock

um i finally listen to my friends and

get myself a smart

pair of spectacles which also allow me

to

record some stuff that goes on in my

meetings

um i have this fancy car which senses my

mood every single time i board and based

on that plays me some music

at the same time checks my calendar and

decides the destination

and lets my driver know accordingly

meanwhile the fridge and the

cupboard in my home have figured out

what needs to be reordered and

have placed an order automatically with

my favorite online grocery vendor

right i mean it sounded fun five years

ago today

it’s a nightmare i’m furiously

backpedaling on that dream

and uh i don’t want to go anywhere near

there

okay but the big question is

so what so what if all this data about

you

is out there what happens to this data

well at the very least it is used to

track you

profile you and build very detailed

digital personas about you

which are then further traded and used

in real time auctions by various people

who does this well these are actually

huge interconnected networks of

advertisers data brokers

profilers analysts publishers and what

have you

basically thousands of companies all

interconnected into one

tight integrated ecosystem

believe me it’s a 227 billion dollar

industry worldwide today okay and

businesses pick this up to serve you

ads to suggest products to cater to your

preferences

and so on so that’s good isn’t

it maybe but it doesn’t stop with this

the same data is used to decide

for you what you see what you read

what you watch what you hear and so on

so the news that you see is often

different from the news that your

neighbor sees

because you have two different digital

personas or if you run a search the

results that you get

are different from the results that your

colleague gets

because you have two different digital

identities

so what happens as a result of this

again the question is so what what’s the

big deal right

over a period of time this all leads to

us living in what are called engineered

eco chambers

you know um have you ever wondered

for example why do you keep seeing feeds

from people who agree with you who have

opinions or beliefs which are similar to

yours

and you don’t hear from people who have

contradictory ideas so often

is because you live in that eco chamber

and you haven’t created that echo

chamber somebody else has created that

for you

right an extreme example of how this can

pan out was the whole cambridge analytic

scandal that happened you know where

entire elections were

engineered because of this ability

and mind you that happened five years

ago so imagine

how advanced and sophisticated we are in

today’s

world right the sad

reality is that today we as individuals

have completely completely

lost control over our data

in our delight of getting everything

free online we have missed the

fundamental point

that is that we have become the product

and not actually the product that we use

i’m going to say it again we have become

the product

just that instead of paying with cash

we are paying with our data to use

certain for free facilities online

that’s the only difference

okay but the only way

this can be controlled is by bringing in

laws and regulations and standards

and best practices across the entire

ecosystem

and where very sadly india

is really lagging behind

we are a country of over a billion

mobile phones

digital india is galloping ahead smart

cities smart governance digital payments

and whatnot

all of this is spewing for data that is

being

sucked up by that all-encompassing

vacuum cleaner around us

and this data is available for the

whole world to do whatever they feel

like with it

okay which is why we urgently

need our data protection and privacy law

okay you know when i when i talk of

privacy in india many people

counter it by saying oh privacy in india

is a joke

you know we are a country where we give

our entire life history to the strangers

sitting next to us

on the plane or bus or

train right but that is missing the

whole point

for the next 10 generations we’ll keep

sharing our life histories with the

stranger next to us on the planet

but while we are swapping life stories

you know the gadgets and the

surroundings around us are sucking up

our own

oh you know all our data and flashing it

out to the whole world to play around

with it

with us having no control over it that

my friends is the problem and

that is why it is beyond time

it is long overdue that the next

billion people start taking control

back over their most precious commodity

their personal data thank you

[Music]