Reflecting the importance gained by privacy within public imagination, the 2019 elections are the first time it finds mention across major party manifestos. For the 2019 election, both the Congress and the CPI(M) promise to protect the right to privacy if elected to power. The CPI(M) focuses on privacy more broadly while promising to protect against “intrusion into the fundamental right to privacy of every Indian”. It promises to enact a data privacy law to protect against “appropriation/misuse of private data for commercial use”, albeit without any reference to misuse by government agencies. Data protection is only seen in a limited sense as being required in conjunction with increasing digital financialisation.

Source: Hindustan Times April 30, 2019 19:28 UTC