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Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Row Shows Importance of Transparency

Over the past ten days, Indians have had to confront two incidents with serious ramifications for our privacy. One, the Prime Minister’s NaMo mobile app, collecting data from 22 features on users’ phones, was allegedly sharing user data with US-based analytics company CleverTap without user consent.

Moreover, the confirmation (through former Cambridge Analytica (CA) employee and whistle-blower Christopher Wylie’s testimony before a British Parliament committee) that CA had large-scale operations in India.

Events over the past few weeks have only underscored users’ vulnerability with respect to our privacy online. This, even as the Supreme Court is hearing the final arguments on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, India’s biometric linked unique identification database, and as the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) appointed Justice Srikrishna Committee is set to release its recommendations for India’s forthcoming data protection law. This law cannot come fast enough. India’s current data protection model is failing.

Our current laws protect only certain kinds of information identified as “sensitive personal data or information (SPDI)” from unauthorised use by companies. Against the State, Indians have a fundamental right to privacy, including informational privacy, but this does not extend to private companies.

Rules framed in 2011, under the Information Technology Act, 2000 lists passwords, financial information, sexual orientation, health conditions, medical records, and biometric information as “sensitive personal data or information” (SPDI). Companies are required to notify users of their data handling practices through privacy policies, and require purpose-specific written consent to collect data.

User Consent is Key

This combination of a “list-based approach” and “notice and consent” framework is woefully inadequate for a big-data driven CA-like scenario. Only a small part of users’ Facebook data used to create and exploit detailed individual profiles is likely to qualify for protection as SPDI. Most users (including privacy lawyers and data scientists) do not read long privacy policies, full of legalese, let alone fully understand them. Privacy policies may also be materially changed overnight, as we also seen with the NaMo app.

The app’s privacy policy initially promised complete confidentiality of user data with explicit consent for sharing with third parties, which was later changed to state that user data may be shared with third parties for certain purposes identified in the policy.

Moreover, in a big-data world, where large volumes of data are collected, shared and processed at very high speeds, it is impossible to explain to users the complex ways in which their data is used.

This creates an information asymmetry problem: Without being properly informed of how data will be used, users’ informed consent is a fiction. In practice, businesses collect and re-purpose as much data as they can, and users are unable to see what happens with their data.

What is DEPA & How Will it Help Protect Data?

Imagine data to be like water. Once collected, each business sends the data down a set of pipes that it has designed. Different businesses use different pipes, the designs of which are not publicly known. As a result, users, who are unable to see what is happening to their data, suffer a loss of control while businesses gain disproportionate power.

The Facebook-CA incident is only the latest case in point where multiple parties have benefited for years from opaque data flows. Even in the NaMo app-CleverTap case, users have to trust the latter when it says that it is not renting or selling user data, with no way of knowing where their data actually is and what exactly it is being used for.

Re-balancing the business-user relationship and solving the fundamental problem of opacity in today’s data flows is key to protecting individual privacy. India’s financial sector is currently witnessing the debut of the Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA), which aims to bring this into effect.

Born in Bangalore, DEPA re-engineers the way in which the personal data of users is shared between multiple businesses. In doing so, it aims to give users more control over their data. DEPA makes data flow through a publicly-known, standardised set of ‘pipes’.

To restore control to users, DEPA makes it technologically impossible for businesses to share data without user consent, which is recorded in a ‘consent artefact,’ an indestructible electronic record that shows exactly what users have consented to.

Users can choose the exact pieces of data they want to share, with whom, for how long, and for what purpose. When users revoke consent; businesses will lose access to that data.

Transparency in Business-User Relationship

To improve transparency, DEPA also places a tag on each piece of users’ data. As data flows from business to business, the tags make it possible for users to track exactly where their data is. Users will know how their data is being used – when it is given to advertisers, sold to brokers, or used without permission.

Data tags also enable all data movements to be logged, potentially in a ‘consent dashboard,’ which would be like a portal that users can sign-in to. Such a system will likely illuminate the modern data chain for users for the first time ever.

By prescribing a uniform set of ‘pipes’ for data flows, DEPA is trying to create a new standard. Standards are formalised norms that publicly describe how particular technologies work. For example, 4G-LTE and Bluetooth are communication standards, and USB and HDMI are hardware standards. If DEPA achieves critical mass based on how widely it is adopted, it will become a data flow standard.

By making data flows more transparent and giving users more control over their data, DEPA wants to level the playing field between businesses and users. Since there is an unequal relationship between users and businesses today, users’ data is artificially undervalued, which indicates market failure.

Levelling the field will allow the market to find the true value of user data. This is good for the economy, and of course, for users too.

The pipes are like highways. Just as highways lubricate the economy and increase trade and economic growth, standardised data architecture will do the same.

(Nehaa Chaudhari, a Harvard-educated lawyer, heads the public policy practice at TRA Law, an award-winning policy and law firm focused on startups and technology. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

Government keeps four units out of Air India divestment

Government keeps four units out of Air India divestment
The four units, which include Alliance Air, ground handling and MRO subsidiaries, are expected to be hived off and possibly sold by December
Moneycontrol News

The government has excluded four of Air India’s subsidiaries from the divestment, details of which were released on Wednesday.

The four units are –

AIESL: A wholly owned subsidiary of AI, primarily involved in the maintenance, repair and overhaul of engines and airframe

AIATSL: A wholly owned subsidiary of AI, primarily involved in ground handling and cargo handling services

HCI: A subsidiary of AI which owns and operates two hotels in Delhi and Srinagar as well as the Chef air kitchen units in Delhi and Mumbai

AASL: Operates Alliance Air, which provides connectivity to Tier II and Tier III cities in India and also links these cities to metro hubs

The preliminary information memorandum notes that the four units “will not be part of the Proposed Transaction.”

The government plans to hive off these units through a demerger, or “other appropriate mechanisms”, said the memorandum.

Those in the know say that the government has already received interests for AIESL from players like Air Works, among the oldest MRO service providers in the Indian market. International players such as Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company and Etihad Airways Engineering could also join the race.

AASL, which runs Alliance Air, is also expected to evoke interest, given its network in the shorter-route destinations in India. The airline flies to four destinations and has a fleet of 15 aircraft. Domestic airlines such as IndiGo and SpiceJet have recently launched services in smaller cities as part of the regional connectivity scheme, known as UDAN. Even new entrants like Air Odisha could be in the reckoning.

The government is expected to come out with more details on the sale of these units in the coming weeks. “The plan is to complete the demerger of these units by December, by when the divestment of Air India is aimed to be concluded,” said an executive from the industry.

Tough deadline

But that deadline may be a tough one to keep.

Following is the proposed timeline of the divestment.

Kapil Kaul, CEO & Director of CAPA South Asia, said, “Meeting end-December divestment deadline may be challenging,” in a note on Wednesday on the divestment announcement.

A billionaire biotech investor says Facebook will be decimated by its disastrous data leak (FB)

Jim Mellon, the billionaire British investor, has predicted that Facebook faces “decimation” over the Cambridge Analytica data disaster.

Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” after a tumultuous two weeks for Mark Zuckerberg’s social-media company, Mellon said the fallout would be far-reaching after Facebook was plundered for the data of 50 million users.

The scandal has wiped about $80 billion, or 57 billion British pounds, off Facebook’s value, and Mellon said the firm’s share price could halve over the next two years.

He said the threats came from the possibility of increased government regulation and further fiascos over how the company handles its users’ personal information. Facebook shares closed at $153.03 on Wednesday.

“The Cambridge Analytica thing is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Mellon, who is typically bearish on big tech. “We’re going to see decimation of particularly Facebook and quite right too — it’s a trivial use of modern technology and one that’s rather sinister.”

Jim MellonView photos
Jim Mellon
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CNBC

Mellon added that Facebook and Google’s scale and increased public accountability had left them vulnerable to government regulation around the world.

He predicted that Google would be hit by “enormous” fines, like the 2.4 billion euro ($3 billion) one meted out by the European Union last year, and that its parent firm, Alphabet, could be broken up by US and European administrations.

“These fatted calves are now ripe for the plucking by governments everywhere,” Mellon told CNBC.

Mellon’s net worth stands at 920 million pounds ($1.3 billion), according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

His investment company Burnbrae Group has numerous biotech interests, such as the experimental cancer drug firm SalvaRX, which began trading on London’s junior Aim market in March 2016.

Mellon made his money in mining and property and supported the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union in 2016.

What Keeps KCR Up at Night – Hopes of a Third Front and PM Dreams

An ‘Over-Confident’ KCR

Donning the robe of a messiah, KCR has been announcing that ‘people are vexed that there is no qualitative change, even after seventy years of democracy.’ KCR, as has been reported, travelled to Kolkata to confabulate with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for forming a federal front. He has also met CPM’s Sitaram Yechury with the same idea.

Although Telangana has merely 17 seats in the 545 strong Lok Sabha, KCR avers that his chances are bright because of many factors. Firstly he has, by political manoeuvring, decimated the Opposition in his own state of Telangana. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which had 13 MLAs, is now left with two.

The Congress’ ranks have also been depleted, what with 7 Congress MLAs defying the party whip last week in the Rajya Sabha election and voting for the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) candidates.

Even as Congress leaders are complaining about the ‘mind games’ being played by KCR, the TRS supremo is unfazed because he is confident of sweeping the polls in 2019. While the BJP in the state is a non-starter (in spite of a few visits by national President Amit Shah), being able to sweep the state and becoming the federal front PM consensus candidate is quite a different matter.

The leaders of many likely federal front partners with more seats (like Mamata with 42 seats in West Bengal) might harbour prime ministerial ambitions themselves. But KCR, with his proficiency in both Hindi and English, and being from south India, feels that he has an edge over others.

KCR — the Father of ‘Modern Hyderabad’

In February 2015, barely months after ascending the throne, KCR’s cops were able to catch a TDP MLA red-handed while trying to bribe an independent MLA to vote in favour of the party in the (then forthcoming) legislative council election. Even as the TDP MLA was jailed, a tape was produced (and leaked to TV channels) where a voice suspiciously similar to that of Chandrababu Naidu, was found saying something incriminating.

Though Naidu was not booked, he shifted to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh soon thereafter — along with the whole Andhra Pradesh Secretariat. This, after saying all the while that he would not leave Hyderabad before the mandatory 10 years for which the city would be the common capital. This was an opportunity for KCR’s Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to poach on TDP MLAs who were told by Naidu to fend for themselves.

At the same time, to ensure that Andhra industrialists did not flee to Andhra Pradesh leaving Hyderabad high and dry, KCR appointed his son KT Rama Rao (KTR) to woo them. The savvy KTR, who is IT and Urban Development Minister in KCR’s government, was able to win the confidence of these industrialists who were at the receiving end during the Telangana statehood movement.

Naidu is hailed as the father of modern Hyderabad, who got Microsoft and other IT investments. But KTR is following his footsteps and has been able to woo many others. “Hyderabad is a boom town now,” is the refrain of investors.

A Colourful Political Career

KTR is being projected to takeover as chief minister once KCR migrates to national politics. Realising that Telangana has no asset other than Hyderabad, KCR and KTR want to expand the city to allow more investors and enhance ‘Brand Hyderabad’. The cost of land in Hyderabad is still lower than in Chennai and Bengaluru, which is why many IT investors are attracted to the city. With Bengaluru’s infrastructure now under great stress, the father-son duo perceive that Hyderabad can become the next Silicon Valley of India.

KCR has had a chequered political career. A faithful follower of Telugu Desam founder NT Rama Rao, he was later transport minister in Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP government in Andhra Pradesh from 1995-99.