Will give data to restaurants with user consent: Food delivery firms

Zomato, Swiggy and other delivery firms say customer phone numbers will be shared with restaurants only after clear opt-in consent

As discussions between aggregators and restaurant partners on data access and transparency materialise, food delivery platforms note that they will share customer information with restaurants only after obtaining explicit consent from customers.

 

Aditya Mangla, chief executive officer of Eternal's food delivery business, said the company will only share the phone numbers of users with consent, and the process is neither “sneaky nor automatic.”

 

“We at Zomato are in the early stages of launching a feature on the app which gives customers the option to opt-in to receive marketing and promotional updates directly from restaurants. If and when consent is provided - only the phone number will be shared with the restaurant. No other information will be shared. There's nothing sneaky or automatic about it,” Mangla said in a post on social media.

 

The clarification from Mangla comes after a few social media users shared concerns about their data being shared. For instance, Milind Deora, member of Parliament, wrote on X, “So, Zomato and Swiggy plan to share customer mobile numbers with restaurants. This opens the door to privacy risks and further spam under the guise of ‘better service’. We need clear, unambiguous opt-in guidelines, in line with the new DPDP Rules, so consumers’ data is respected.” 

 

On the Zomato app, once the users place an order, a pop-up screen appears with a prompt asking whether they consent to receive offers directly from restaurants. It includes two options: 'Share my phone number' and 'Do not share my phone number.' The users can also click on the profile section and mark their preferences. The company is also likely to run some customer education campaigns (via email and other means) to allay their fears, a person in the know said.

 

While the conversation between the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) and Zomato has reached the final stages, discussions with Swiggy are still at an early phase. However, a source in the know noted that similar to Zomato, the company will seek clear consent from users prior to sharing their data with restaurant partners.

 

The development comes long after the NRAI, which represents over 500,000 restaurants, demanded data on the customers they are serving. They had also blamed food delivery companies for data masking and non-transparent practices. They argued that even if they are paying high commissions to food delivery platforms, they still did not have any direct access to users to build lasting customer relationships.