Nagpur: The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has expressed satisfaction over the step of the Government asking explanation from Facebook for sharing its data with phone makers. “It is a pro-active step of the Government in view of the sensitivity of the matter since data sharing can pose several threats,” said the CAIT. The Government has given time till June 20 to respond.
Earlier, the CAIT filed a complaint with Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of IT & Technology on June 5 about data sharing of Facebook with about 60 phone makers and other device manufacturers and termed it as a serious issue for not only trade but for economy and security of the country as well.
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Thursday 13 March 2025
CAIT National President B C Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that from the point of view of businesses, sharing of such a data may result into consolidation of business into few hands as data analytical could easily give information about the nature, preferences, capacity & capability , trends, purchase or sale bahaviour of person or persons or trade groups etc. It may also lead to leakage of confidential information about particular business or businesses. Based on such analyses of data the Companies will attack trade or businesses in a most strategical and organised manner to control the markets.
Both Bhartia and Khandelwal said that usage of smart phones have become ubiquitous, and are forcing us to re-imagine the contours of privacy and data protection. We carry our phones everywhere we go, we use them for accessing critical services including banking and payments, we use them to store personal and sensitive data, to access our social networks and emails, and many “apps” are connected to servers and facilities that consumers and governments, often have no line of sight to.
Unsurprisingly, reports of phone hacks, theft of personally identifiable information and user-tracking, misguidance of consumers and evasion of law, by stakeholders within the digital ecosystem, has become an everyday phenomenon. The Indian smart phone user is particularly vulnerable. Therefore, such kind of data sharing should be banned, the CAIT said.
