Indians care deeply about privacy of personal data, shows new study

Many interviewees recognised their inability to understand terms of data sharing by service providers and wanted more visual forms of consent that they could easily understand

We met Sulekha (name changed) in a village in Uttarakhand. She was talking about the information she considered most important to her: Her ration card, Aadhaar card, NREGA [National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] job card and her phone number. When asked how much she would sell this information for, she visibly withdrew saying she did not want any money for it. What would she need to share this information? A guarantee that it would not be misused.

Sulekha was one of the 50 people–30 men and 20 women–surveyed as part of a qualitative